CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice on Thursday ordered stepped-up enforcement of speed limits on major highways a week after an accident killed two people.
Justice announced the additional measures at a news conference in Charleston. He ordered state police to enforce reduced speed limits in work zones and directed the state Department of Transportation “to go above and beyond” national safety standards with signs and traffic control.
While last week’s accident along Interstate 81 did not occur in a construction zone, Berkeley County Sheriff Nathan Harmon said Thursday that work zones are common elsewhere along the interstate.
According to police, two vehicles lost control, went through the median and crashed into a parked tractor-trailer at a rest stop June 30 near Martinsburg. Two men who were tractor-trailer operators and had walked to the scene to help then were hit by another vehicle that had lost control. Speed and weather conditions were listed as factors.
In a news release after the accident, Harmon called it “an unfortunate situation, one of the worst I have seen in my career.”
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