[legion]

At least eight dead on Indiana Toll Road

By Tom Coyne
The Associated Press
Published April 26, 2007, 11:25 AM CDT
BRISTOL, Ind. -- The driver of a semi-trailer plowed into morning traffic slowed for a bridge construction project Thursday along the Indiana Toll Road, killing at least eight people and injuring two others, police said.

The eight confirmed victims included five who died in a single vehicle, said 1st Sgt. Dave Bursten of the Indiana State Police. Four of the victims were members of northern Indiana's large Amish population.

None of the cars involved in the crash was believed to have had Illinois license plates, according to a dispatcher for the Indiana State Police.

The 6:45 a.m. crash about 25 miles east of South Bend occurred when the driver of a semitrailer rear-ended another vehicle and started a chain reaction crash involving two other semitrailers and four cars that had slowed near a construction area, said state police Sgt. Trent Smith.

He said it was unclear why the semi driver didn't brake as he approached the area.

"At this point we don't know the reason. He did not slow down," Smith said, adding, "It's one of the worst accidents that we've had up here."

Smith said five of the victims died in a van but that the van's driver survived the crash.

He said two of the fatalities were people riding in a sport-utility vehicle and the eighth victim was the driver of a pickup truck.

Nearby resident Kim VanFleeren visited the crash scene shortly after the accident and said she saw several covered bodies on the road and a demolished car under one of the semitrailers.

"There was a vehicle almost three-fourths of the way under the back his trailer. I couldn't tell if it was a van or a car or what it was," she told WSBT radio in South Bend.

Smith said the accident occurred in the tollway's westbound lanes about 1 1/2 miles before the start of a construction site where highway workers are rebuilding a bridge. Traffic had come to a standstill in the right lane and was moving slowly into the left lane.

He said the warning signs were posted along the highway up to three miles from where the construction site began.

"There are thousands of people that travel these roads everyday. All it takes is one person not paying attention for a split second to cause these accidents," Smith said.

Hours after the crash, hazardous materials workers were working to clean up diesel fuel that stood in puddles or was streaming along the roadway from the damaged semitrailers.

Investigators were collecting evidence and working to identify the victims.

Bristol Fire Chief William Dempster said four of the victims were Amish residents of nearby LaGrange County. While the Amish typically do not drive motor vehicles, it is common for Amish workers to hire drivers to take them to work. LaGrange County has one of the largest Amish populations in the nation.

The accident scene about one mile east of Bristol is near a crash site that killed five people last year on the east-west tollway, which also is Interstate Highways 80 and 90.

Thursday's crash left westbound lanes closed about 40 miles west of the Ohio state line.

State police 1st Sgt. David Boehler said it was raining at the time of the crash but investigators did not believe weather played a role in the collision.

At the crash scene, a crew hauled away a vehicle that was so heavily damaged it was unrecognizable. One of the semitrailers appeared to have a crushed front end and fire damage.

A pickup truck that was facing the wrong way had its back end torn off in the crash.

The accident happened on the edge of a bridge reconstruction project over the St. Joseph River where traffic is restricted to two lanes eastbound and one lane westbound.

Clearly, it is time for Congress to act. This massacre should help generate public support for a bill to ban "military grade" semi trucks. Further, it may help draw attention to the dangers posed by automatic SUVs.