Crash on Cole Road Kills 13-Year-old
The site of the crash, near 218 Cole Road in Buffalo Township.
On Friday, May 24, at about 7:00 P.M, Dylan Turbi and a friend were biking west on Cole Road in Buffalo Township when they were struck by a driver, killing Dylan and injuring his friend. The driver said that he couldn’t see them because the sun was in his eyes. Police reported that speeding and alcohol were not considered factors in the crash, and Chief Tim Derringer described it as a “tragic accident.” While the driver may not in fact have done anything illegal, a number of factors could have made the situation safer, which we will investigate.
Elevation profile of Cole Road (Google Earth).
Cole Road is very hilly, and several steep slopes along its length effect visibility. Where the crash happened there is an uphill rise that flattens out briefly before going up a much taller and steeper hill. Going uphill, facing due west, at 7:00 P.M., it is very believable that the sun could have been in the driver’s eyes. But the sun isn’t the only thing that negatively effected visibility.
The scene of the crash (WTAE via Tribune Review).
The driver stayed at the scene and cooperated with police. Their black pickup truck is visible in the center of the image above. Based on the placement of the Chevrolet logo and the shape of the tail lights, tailgate, and side-view mirrors, I believe it to be a 2013-18 Chevrolet Silverado.
The 2013-18 Chevrolet Silverado, left, next to it’s very slightly larger modern model, right (Carsized).
This slightly older model of truck is just over an inch shorter of it’s modern counterpart, with a grill height of about 4-foot 4-inches.
This high grill height contributes to the bad visibility from this truck. As the image above suggests, a driver in this truck wouldn’t be able to see the ground for about 30 feet in front of him, and that’s on flat ground, made worse when coming over a rise, as was the case in this crash.
The 2013-18 Chevrolet Silverado weighs just shy of 5,000 pounds. Assuming the driver was not speeding, as reported by the police, and was traveling between 35-40 miles per hour, it would take him about 150 feet and 3.5 seconds to stop his truck.
This is to say that the Chevy Silverado, and pickup trucks like it, are inherently unsafe for people outside of the car. And a wide range of regulations, from gas taxes to fuel efficiency standards to insurance rates, encourage car companies to produce bigger and bigger cars and market them to Americans. Fixing these regulations would make both people inside and outside of these trucks safer.
But the car manufacturers aren’t the only ones that could make changes to prevent crashes like this in the future; the municipality should do its part as well. The speed limit on Cole Road is 35 miles per hour. That may have made sense in the 90s, before the suburban development along the road happened, brining more vehicles and more points of conflict. But nowadays, Cole Road should be thought of as a residential street, and as such its speed limit should be brought down to 25 miles per hour, or lower. The street could also be striped, with a double yellow line dividing lanes. Shoulder lines should be spaced from the double yellow at 10 to 11 feet, to make it feel narrower and encourage slower travel. And caution signs could be placed at the rises along the road to help drivers know that they should slow down and pay extra attention.
To address the regulations that encourage car manufacturers to make vehicles that are deadly to anyone outside the vehicle, contact your federal representative, which you can identify here. To contact the township and ask them to reduce the speed limit and stripe Cole Road, contact the Chairman of the Board of Supervisors Ron Zampogna III at (724) 294-0109 or Rzampogna@buffalotownship.com, and the Township Manager, Richard G. Hill, at Rhill@buffalotownship.com.