Newly Installed West Virginia Turnpike Guardrail May Have Saved Truckers’ Life

Bluefield Daily Telegraph reports, a tractor-trailer driver trying to avoid a deer crashed on the West Virginia Turnpike (I-77) near Camp Creek yesterday, and state police said there were no injuries “thanks, in part, to new safety measures.” According to a police spokesman, guardrail that had been installed in the median just hours before the accident slowed the truck enough that it didn’t penetrate a shoulder guardrail and stopped before “going over the mountain.” The article notes that the crash destroyed 432 feet of guardrail and 18 posts. (Link inserted.)

Bluefield Daily Telegraph also reports today on a consequence of an August 2018 crash that occurred at nearly the same turnpike location. Negligent homicide charges brought against an Ohio truck driver were recently dismissed, and the truck driver entered a guilty plea to the lesser offenses of reckless driving and operation of a vehicle without required equipment or in an unsafe condition. The accident resulted in death for two West Virginia Turnpike employees and injuries to a third. A prosecutor tells the newspaper there was insufficient evidence to prove a necessary element of negligent homicide.