Daughter died in crossover accident.
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| Don Shrubshell photo |
| Lisa Forbis of Hallsville gathers plastic flowers today that had blown from a flower memorial for her daughter, Whitney Bentlage, in the median of Highway 63 near McHatton Road. Friends of Bentlage, 18, below, created the memorial after she and Elizabeth Shea, 20, of Columbia were killed in October when their northbound car went out of control, crossed the median and collided with a semi. If median cables had been in place, Forbis says, the young women still would be alive. |
On a Saturday in October, just three days after burying her daughter, Lisa Forbis drove on rain-slick Interstate 70 in a car with four grieving relatives on their way to Kansas City International Airport.
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Forbis spotted an eastbound car starting to hydroplane. It careened off the highway into the grass median, heading at her westbound car. Before the vehicle could skid on about 40 feet of turf and into oncoming traffic, it struck three steel cables anchored in the median. All five people in the wrecked vehicle walked off without a scratch, Forbis said.
"I couldn’t believe it. All it did was it just encased the car and stopped it right there," Forbis said of the cables. "Everybody jumped out, and I pulled off on the side of the road to make sure they were OK, and they were all fine."
Forbis believes that if those same cables had been in place on Highway 63 a week earlier her daughter still would be alive.
"It infuriated me to think about it, because on 63 there was nothing there to prevent her from getting hurt or let the other driver get out of her way," she said. "It’s almost senseless."
On Oct. 12, daughter Whitney Bentlage, 18, of Ashland was driving north on Highway 63 with friend Elizabeth Shea, 20, of Columbia on their way to class at Merrill University of Beauty Arts and Science in Moberly.
Bentlage lost control of the car in the rain and skidded across the median before broadsiding an oncoming semitrailer. The women died at the scene.
"If they had" median cables "here, Whitney would be planning her wedding today and Liz would be at home with her son," Forbis said this morning as she revisited the crash site.
Median cables have become a hot topic recently. This week the Missouri Department of Transportation announced it would continue stringing median cables along key highways. Plans are for 55 miles of cable on Highway 67 and 45 miles of cable on Interstate 55 in southeast Missouri.
MoDOT also announced that median cables already in place have had a significant effect. In 2007, there were two fatal crossover accidents on sections of I-70, Interstate 44, Interstate 55 and Interstate 29, where the cables are installed, down from 55 crossover deaths on those same sections of road the year before cables were installed. No crossover fatalities have occurred on I-70 in MoDOT’s 13-county Central District since the cables were installed, compared to about two deaths a year previously.
"We expected the cables to improve safety numbers, but seeing these results was an unexpected thrill for all of us," MoDOT Director Pete Rahn said in a written statement.
MoDOT says a section of Highway 63 is prioritized to include cables, but it won’t occur until more funding is available.
"It’s on our radar," said Eric Schroeter, assistant district manager for MoDOT’s Central District. Schroeter said 10 stretches of highway are slated to get cables next, including the 30-mile stretch of Highway 63 between Jefferson City and Columbia. He estimated 2011 or 2012 as likely for installation.
Costs of $100,000 per mile have resulted in a slow pace of construction and relatively small area of protection. That puts the price of Jefferson City-Columbia cables at $3 million. Funding comes from federal "safety money" and MoDOT’s construction budget.
Maintenance of the cables has additional costs. Last year, along 70 miles of I-70 in the Central District, crews had to make 350 repairs after accidents, at an average cost of $1,000 per repair.
"They do try to recover that money from the insurance companies as people hit it, but" about one-quarter is paid for by the state, Schroeter said.
That means Highway 63 will continue to be a crossover hazard. Between 2002 and 2006, there were four fatal crossover accidents and six that caused disabling injuries between Jefferson City and Columbia. In December, a National Guard soldier and University of Missouri student, Neilson Rudd, 22, was killed in the median along Highway 63 after he stopped to help a motorist.
"I just wonder how many more kids have to die or be seriously hurt before we start changing things," Forbis said.
