Investigations continue into two wrong-way fatal crashes in Fayette County last weekend. Six people died in an Interstate 75 collision Saturday afternoon and less than 24 hours later a driver going the wrong way on New Circle Road died in a crash.
Kentucky Transportation Cabinet Highway Engineer Jason Siwula said reducing the likelihood of these tragic incidents can come through roadway safety and driver behavior measures. “Remember when we talk about transportation safety in particular, the infrastructure side, the roadway side is one portion of that. But, then the other portion is education programs and other types of interventions to prevent impairment and impaired driving and crashes resulting from that as well as other types of behavioral mechanisms,” said Siwula.
Siwula said it’s not uncommon for impairment to be a factor. But, the transportation official noted it’ll be some time before it’s known if that was a factor in last weekend’s two fatal crashes.
Siwula said state transportation officials are meeting with a safety group in Lexington. He added those discussions could lead to roadway modifications to stop wrong-way vehicles from traveling onto the highway. “As far as active technologies to disable vehicles, those are things that we’ll be looking at evaluating with those types of discussions that I spoke about earlier,” Siwula explained.
The highway engineer urged drivers to always be vigilant in making safe-driving decisions.
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