AREA WORK TO CURB WRONG-WAY HIGHWAY DEATHS NEARLY DONE
Goal is to help curb wrong-way driving deaths around Ohio.
Motorists in Greene and Hamilton counties will soon see more highway signs alerting and detecting wrong-way drivers as the state seeks to curb wrecks that have claimed 15 lives in southwest Ohio in recent years.
Completion in Montgomery County is likely to come next year, officials said, as all three counties were among the targeted areas for increased awareness in the Ohio Department of Transportation program. ODOT is focusing on 17 counties where officials said the vast majority of Ohio’s nearly 50 wrong-way fatalities have occurred since 2016.
A St. Patrick’s Day triple fatal on Interstate 75 has a former Xenia woman facing murder charges for the deaths of three Mason family members. In late June, a Wright State University student died on I-675 in a case being reviewed by prosecutors after police said a Centerville man caused the Beavercreek wreck.
“I think it’s important to know that there is already more-than-required signage up in these areas,” ODOT Press Secretary Matt Bruning said Wednesday in an email to this news organization. “What we’re doing in these 17 counties is installing even more.”
ODOT’s new system to detect and deter wrong-way drivers — with 92 electronic signs and 82 detection devices — begins along an 18-mile stretch of I-71 in Hamilton County.
When it is activated, LED lights around the edge of several “wrong way” and “do not enter” signs will begin to flash. An alert will also be sent to ODOT’s Traffic Management Center in Columbus.
Clark County is not among the 17 targeted counties, but law enforcement there will be involved, just as they have been in Miami County, said Lt. Brian Aller, the post commander at the Ohio State Highway Patrol’s Springfield post.
“We’ll work to get traffic stopped coming toward that wrong-way driver,” Aller said. “We’ve done that before. Here in Springfield we’ve done that. We’ve also done that at Piqua, where we’ve avoided some serious crashes by doing that.”