Four people were killed and others critically injured needlessly in a pileup accident on the Ohio Turnpike.
The accident created trauma and tragedy for those directly involved and threw a pall over the holiday season for everyone who heard about it.
It doesn’t need to happen. The Ohio Turnpike Commission should implement safety improvements before next winter, if not before the rest of this winter.
The fatal victims included Toledo resident Julie E. Roth, 37, and Napoleon resident Bernard M. Bloniarz, 59. Also killed were 19-year-old Emma L. Smith of Webberville, Mich., which is east of Lansing, and Franciso Gutierrez-Martinez, 30, of Cleveland.
They were caught up in a pileup that occurred at 12:34 p.m. Dec. 23 on the eastbound lanes in Erie County’s Groton Township, about 55 miles east of Toledo.
Area rescue agencies responded extensively, including from Toledo. Clyde High School sent a bus to provide transportation and safety for motorists involved in the crash.
The accident was so extensive that wreckage was still being removed from the scene days after Christmas.
We motorists need to exercise more caution while driving in rainy or snowy conditions. We need to slow down and increase the distance from the cars in front of us.
In an extreme weather event such as the one we had on Dec. 23, when motorists likely had extremely limited visibility, traffic should have been reduced to a crawl.
The turnpike had already issued a travel ban on certain extra-tall vehicles and warned motorists in Erie and Sandusky counties to expect delays. As things turned out, the warnings should have been more dire.
One solution is permanent, variable speed-limit signs.
The Ohio Department of Transportation has such signage on I-90 east of Cleveland. The Ohio Turnpike should implement variable signs for safety in construction zones.
The pileup was just a few miles east of a similar crash March 12, 2014, involving more than 80 vehicles that killed three travelers and seriously injured a state trooper who stopped to render aid.
Investigators blamed unsafe speeds in the dangerous weather conditions as a major factor in that pileup.
That’s twice in less than 10 years. Let’s act so it doesn’t happen again.
First Published January 7, 2023, 5:00 a.m.
