Backups see fatal crash at Newark Toll Plaza of I-95 Delaware Turnpike - REPORT CONTESTED

Vehicles backed up at the Newark Toll Plaza on the I-95 Delaware Turnpike just east of the Maryland line were involved in rear-ender crash that killed a 23 year old woman, injured 18 people, and had the Turnpike closed down for two hours. (see ADDITION at end)

Police said that at 21:32 Thursday night a northbound Ford Econoline van ran into the back of an Accura that formed the end of one of five queues of vehicles 400m (a quarter mile) long from the toll plaza.

Chain collision

The Accura was pushed forward violently into the vehicle ahead and the rear mounted by the red Ford van, and the back badly crushed. The woman, 23, who died was a passenger in the back seat of the Accura.

She was dead before she could be extracted from the wreckage. Other vehicles up the queue were banged up and damaged but none of the occupants suffered life threatening injuries.

Repaving was going on at the time in the approaches to the main toll plaza and traffic was being directed into five lanes of a satellite plaza on the right.

After the accident traffic was directed to the left to use the southbound toll lanes.

The Newark Delaware toll plaza is the worst on the east coast and regularly causes delays of ten minutes to an hour with queues miles long.

A modern toll plaza with highway speed electronic toll lanes through the middle has been designed but the project has a low priority with Delaware DOT which runs the state's tollroads.

Being hard up against the Maryland line Delaware constituents make little use of what is mostly an out-of-staters' facility.

TOLLROADSnews 2007-08-18

ADDITION: Delaware DOT strongly contest the thrust of this report. They say the toll plaza was not an issue and that this was a work zone accident and that the motorist who caused it failed to slow for traffic backed up by lane closures for roadwork.

Darrell Cole, director of public relations at Delaware DOT emailed us that we'd done a "disservice to our readers" in the story above.

He continued: "The fact is --- and you can verify with State Police --- this is classified as a 'work zone fatalilty.' It had ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH TRAFFIC DELAYS AT THE PLAZA. The sad thing is that work zone are the most dangerous areas of our roadways, and this is a classic example. The driver at fault simply did not slow down, while the dozens of other vehicles had no trouble doing so. That has nothing to do with the toll plaza."

He said it was "convenient" for media people to "tie it (the fatal crash) in to the toll plaza" but he would have expected "better" from us.

A colleague of Cole's, Mike Williams emailed that the Washington Post report contained "all the facts about the situation."

The Post reported Williams as saying that "the collision was classified as a work-zone incident, because paving work near the toll plaza - which takes place only at night - required channeling northbound vehicles into five satellite lanes. Overhead message boards and bright lights directed drivers to the appropriate lanes. The backup was about a quarter-mile long when the collision occurred."

Williams told us: "The classification of a "work-zone" incident came at the direction of DelDOT's Chief Traffic Engineer. The main toll plaza heading northbound was closed for paving work taking place on the eastern side of the plaza area (NOT right at the plaza). To prevent merging issues all traffic was shifted to the 5 satellite lanes available exclusively for NB traffic. Once through the satellite plaza traffic would be cleared from the paving work."

We asked Delaware police for their report on the accident. The full report isn't available but a summary released last Friday says:

"Update- I-95 Fatal Crash

Released- Friday, August 17, 2007

"Newark- The Delaware State Police Collision Reconstruction Unit (CRU) members have provided the details surrounding the fatal crash which occurred on Thursday, August 16th at 9:32 p.m. on northbound I-95 just south of the Delaware / Maryland Line Toll Plaza.

"A 2007 BMW 520 (operated by Walter Hoffman, 63, of North Carolina), a 2006 Chevrolet 2500 van (operated by Douglas Hanscom, 55, of Maryland), and a 2006 Acura TSX (operated by Perry Christopher, 24, of Virginia) were stopped consecutively on I-95 northbound in the center lane in heavy traffic.

"A 2006 Ford Econoline Van was traveling northbound I-95 in the same lane as the aforementioned three vehicles. The Ford van did not stop and rear-ended the Acura causing a chain reaction as one vehicle moved forward into the back of the other.

"18 total patients were transported from the scene to area hospitals for evaluation. Not all of those transported were injured.

"As a result of the crash, a back seat passenger in the Acura TSX was fatally injured and pronounced dead at the scene. She has been identified as Meghan Kieffer, 23, of Arlington, Virginia. The other occupants of the Acura were transported to Christiana Hospital. The driver was treated and released for a minor head injury and other body contusions. The front seat passenger, Brian Meenaghan, 25, of Arlington, Virginia, was admitted for observation due to chest and neck injuries.

"Nine passengers in the Chevrolet Van were transported to Christiana, Wilmington and Union (Elkton, MD) Hospitals where they were treated and released for minor injuries. The operators of the BMW and the Chevrolet Van were not injured. None of the occupants in the Ford Van were injured.

"Hai Lin, 27, of 967 Kimball, TN was charged with Operating a Vehicle Causing Death (m). Hai Lin was committed to the Howard Young Correctional Institute in lieu of $1,150.00 secured bail. Investigation is continuing by CRU. The roadway was shut down for approximately two hours with intermittent lane closures for another two hours." (ends police statement)

The police don't comment on whether the accident was worksite-related or toll plaza-related.

We asked police public information officer corporal Jeff Whitmarsh whether traffic was backed up solid from the toll plaza to where the accident occurred. He said: "Yes."

OUR COMMENT: We should have given more weight to the roadworks in the report above. DelDOT's response is welcome. But we aren't persuaded that the regular backups from this toll plaza - the worst backups anywhere on the east coast in our experience - are irrelevant here.

Unfortunately drivers do occasionally rear-end stopped traffic, whether from inattention, misjudgment, drowsiness, falling asleep, or a medical condition.

They don't do it out of malice.

Usually they just made a mistake.

The more cases of stopped traffic there are on highways that are otherwise free flowing - expressways - the more often these mistakes will result in collisions, injuries and deaths.

Hai Lin made a terrible mistake in failing to see and act on stopped traffic ahead. But the fatal crash would have happened regardless of what caused the traffic to be backed up - roadworks or regular plaza backups. The mere fact of traffic being stopped created the danger.

Any old mainline toll plaza forcing all traffic to stop has an inherent danger to it.

Coming upon it after driving the expressway the motorist has to deal with a whole variety of new tasks - reading signs, choosing lanes, assembling cash, lowering the window, slowing enough to avoid rearending the vehicle ahead while not so much as to be rearended oneself. The different payment modes - transponder and cash complicate operations further, forcing some traffic to stop, allowing other traffic to roll through. Increasingly motorists with transponders expect to be able to whiz through, so the odd all-stop-to-pay toll plaza confounds motorist expectations.

Mainline toll plazas are difficult work zones too. On a straight stretch of highway with full shoulders both sides it is relatively straightforward to make use of the shoulders temporarily to maintain lanes. Traffic is channeled with concrete barrier for repaving. Toll plazas are more complicated.

Delaware DOT has done a nice job modernizing toll collection on State Route 1 (DE1). There they were pioneers of open road tolling on the east coast. It will be a pity if on I-95, the true interstate they operate, they are among the last to modernize. The obsolete toll plaza there is an everyday hassle to hundreds of thousands and a menace to an unlucky few.

TOLLROADSnews 2007-08-20