Police blame Hempfield Route 30 crash on wrong-way driver

A crash that injured two people Wednesday on Route 30 in Hempfield was the result of a wrong-way driver, said state police Trooper Steve Limani.

Troopers are still investigating how the driver got onto the eastbound lanes of the divided highway going west, but think they may have entered at the Mt. Pleasant Road interchange, he said.

The multi-vehicle crash was reported around 5:15 p.m. just past the Cedar Street exit at a bend in the highway. Two people were taken to AHN Forbes Hospital in Monroeville, according to Mutual Aid spokesperson Shawn Penzera. Their conditions were unknown. A third person refused treatment.

A video recorded by a driver in the westbound lanes and posted on social media showed what appeared to be an SUV driving the wrong direction slam into a pickup truck while other motorists avoided the collision. Video from Trib news partner WTAE showed a car that appeared to have collided with the pickup. Both had front end damage. The SUV came to a stop several feet west.

The road was closed for four hours while state police reconstructed the crash. About 37,000 vehicles use that stretch of highway daily, according to a PennDOT traffic volume map. Traffic was detoured onto Route 119 and various side streets.

In March 2021, AAA and the National Transportation Safety Board warned motorists of an increasing rate of wrong-way crashes resulting in fatalities. The AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety found that there were 2,008 deaths from wrong-way crashes on divided highways nationwide between 2015 and 2018.

Those types of crashes are typically head-on and the odds of becoming a wrong-way driver increase with alcohol impairment, older age and driving without a passenger, the foundation reported.