More crashes on two-lane route

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OAK HARBOR, Ohio (AP) -- Big-truck traffic has nearly doubled in the last decade on a two-lane route where six people were killed in an accident while returning home from an amusement park. Crashes are up, too.
A sheriff said the state route has gotten so dangerous that he won't drive it unless he's on patrol.
"I won't take my family out," Ottawa County sheriff Craig Emahiser said. "It's unfortunate that large numbers of deaths have to bring the attention back to the problem."
The accident that left six dead from the Detroit area has spurred a lawmaker and law enforcement officers to renew calls for improvements on state Route 2 -- a shortcut between Cedar Point and Michigan.
The roadway follows the Lake Erie shoreline and is a direct path for many boaters, anglers and tourists who visit the lake and its islands.
The state's most recent traffic survey shows that about 10,000 vehicles each day travel on the route near the accident site. About one of every three vehicles is a commercial truck.
Ohio Department of Transportation spokesman Joe Rutherford said that's not much traffic when compared with other routes around the state.
But Emahiser said the figure is misleading because there is so much more traffic in the summer.
"Come out here on a Friday or Saturday night and it's packed," Emahiser said. "It was never designed to carry the amount of traffic it's carrying."
Emahiser said the road needs to be rerouted or widened.
Rep. Chris Redfern, a Democrat from Port Clinton, in a letter sent to the Ohio Department of Transportation said he wanted the department to support and fund a widening of the route.
All of the people killed late Monday night, including the driver, two of his daughters and his girlfriend, were riding together in a Cadillac Escalade after spending the day at Cedar Point. Their SUV flipped and landed in a creek after it was struck by a tractor-trailer.
Shannon Scott, 24, and Alexis Howard, 9, drowned, said Ottawa County Coroner Gilbert Bucholz. Darryl Scott, 44; Ariel Scott, 12; and Alecia Howard, 7 died from injuries from the crash. Six-year-old Amber Channey's death was caused by drowning and head injuries, the coroner said.
Brandi Scott, 13, of Sterling Heights, Mich., was the only survivor from the Escalade. She remained in critical condition with spinal injuries Wednesday at St. Vincent Mercy Medical Center in Toledo.
The chain reaction accident began when a Blazer went left of center and struck a tractor-trailer, causing the semi to hit the Escalade and another car, the patrol said.
Troopers have said they have no reason to believe that truck driver crossed the center line before his semi was hit. No one has been charged.
Authorities were investigating whether the driver of the Blazer had been drinking and took a blood sample from the driver, the patrol said.
In the past three years, there have been 28 crashes on a 9-mile stretch of road between the Davis-Besse nuclear plant and Lucas County, according to authorities. At least four of those crashes were deadly.
The State Highway Patrol in May began increasing patrols along three stretches of Route 2 after seeing a spike in accidents in the last year, trooper Chris Capizzi said.
The state began making some improvements to the route after $19 million in state and federal money was pledged to the project in the late 1990s. New turn lanes have been added and there are plans for more.
But there are several barriers to expanding the road from two lanes to four, most notably the federally protected wetlands that are along the route.
"In some cases, it's almost impossible to build or widen a road in a wetlands," Rutherford said.
It would also cost more to design such a route and buy the land, he said. And cost is one factor the state's Transportation Review Advisory Council considers when deciding what highway projects to fund.
Statistics show that a four-lane divided highway is 75 percent safer than a two-lane highway in rural areas, because it greatly reduces head-on collisions, Rutherford said.
The latest accident coupled with another one seven years ago that also killed six people on their way to Cedar Point likely will lead to more discussion about changing the roadway, Rutherford said.
"We expect more to follow," he said.