Despite new electronic signs announcing road and weather conditions as well as other safety measures, pileups are again occurring on Interstate 94 in southwest Michigan with winter still in its early stages.
Police are again pointing to drivers traveling too fast for road conditions, not the highway itself, as the cause of accidents such as the series of crashes Sunday near Hartford, Mich., that involved more than 60 vehicles and closed the highway for about six hours.
One year ago this month, some 200 vehicles were involved in an I-94 pileup near Galesburg, Mich., that prompted a road safety study.
“Drivers have to pay attention to road conditions and visibility just like fog or rain in case they need to stop or slow down,” said Sgt. Steve Barker with the Michigan State Police post in Niles.
The early Sunday afternoon pileups started when eight passenger vehicles and six semi-trucks collided in the eastbound lanes of I-94 near Hartford, according to state police.
As traffic was backing up, police said drivers traveling at speeds too great for the low visibility and following too closely triggered a series of crashes that involved 38 passenger vehicles and six trucks.
One person was killed and three others suffered life-threatening injuries in that pileup. Eleven other people suffered non-life-threatening injuries in the larger pileup and a Van Buren County sheriff’s deputy rendering aid to a person with a broken leg was hit by a passenger vehicle outside his patrol car.