WESTERLO — Betty Napoli, whose daughter, Jessica Rowinski, was killed on June 30 in a Westerlo crash, made a heartfelt plea to the town board on Aug. 19 to reduce the speed on county routes 404 and 401.

The county has already installed new signs and pavement markings at the intersection and, with a town board resolution, the state will now conduct a study on reducing speed limits.

“I’ve never seen a town that cared so much about people — never in my whole entire life,” Napoli told the board, citing help she was offered looking for her son-in-law’s wallet after the crash.

Napoli asked that a light be placed at the intersection and that divots be placed in the road as well as for a speed reduction. She understood that the town had no jurisdiction over traffic control.

“It’s not you guys’s fault,” said Napoli. “It’s the state’s fault. It’s the county. They need to do something so this is not happening again. I have two grandsons here without a mother.”

She went on, her voice cracking with emotion, “I’m a Christian woman and I’m telling you this is killing me inside,” said Napoli. “To know that my daughter did not have to die in vain because of this. How many other people are going to have to die if they don’t turn around and do something else?”

According to the police accident report, the driver, traveling west on Route 404 in an SUV with five passengers, had run a stop sign at the intersection, colliding with a tractor trailer traveling north on Route 401.

“My son-in-law just got out of the hospital,” Napoli told the board. “And that man blames himself for his wife’s death and I don’t want him to go through that.”

Just after the fatal crash, Albany County Department of Public Works Commissioner Lisa Ramundo told The Enterprise in a statement that the intersection is fully compliant with applicable laws and regulations.

“We cannot speak to the specific operations of the motor vehicles involved in the most recent accident at this intersection …,” she wrote. “People that operate motor vehicles may place others at risk when failing to comply with the rules and regulations set forth in the New York Vehicle and Traffic law, including driving at excessive speeds and failure to obey traffic control devices.”

At its July meeting, the town board had voted unanimously to request a blinking traffic light from Albany County at the intersection. At the same time, a petition calling for safety improvements at the intersection was circulated.

The petition garnered 2, 252 signatures. Westerlo has a population of about 3,200.

Albany County has made a number of improvements, including installing more “stop ahead” advanced warning signs, clearing brush well away from the signs, adding orange flags to the tops of the stop signs, and painting the pavement with “STOP AHEAD” in large letters.

Also, LED-lit signs are in the process of being purchased and should be installed in a few weeks, county spokeswoman Mary Rozak told The Enterprise on Friday.

Rozak reiterated in a statement she sent to answer Enterprise inquiries this week: “Albany County exceeds all protocols of uniform traffic control and responds according to those regulations/guidelines.”

Speed

The Westerlo Town Board on Aug. 19 voted to request a speed study for routes 401 and 404.

Supervisor Matthew Kryzak told the board, “So right now we do have a letter from the county, basically saying that, once they do receive the resolution from the town of Westerlo, they will go ahead and do the speed study on both 401 and 404.”

Kryzak added, “We did submit another speed study earlier in the year on County Route 1, and that was declined … the speed was not lowered but hopefully we can be more successful.”

The state’s Department of Transportation will conduct the study now that Westerlo has passed the resolution, Rozak told The Enterprise.

State traffic data shows that the intersection is a fairly busy one for the area — Route 404 is classified as a major rural traffic collector while Route 401 is classified as a minor one — with roughly 1,500 cars passing through each day on average. 

DOT data also shows that drivers tend to go slower on Route 401 than on Route 404, with 85 percent of drivers going 50 miles per hour or under on 401, compared to as fast as 68 on Route 404.

The intersection has been the scene of three other fatalities and 27 other accidents since 2007, state data shows, backing up community perception that it is dangerous.

However, speed was listed as a factor in only one crash.

Annotations within the crash data show that there is a pattern of drivers failing to yield the right-of-way, even in clear daylight conditions when speed and alcohol or other drugs are not noted as contributing factors.

The deadliest crash since 2007 occurred on June 25, 2008, at 12:42 p.m. in good weather, involving two vehicles and two deaths. The reason given for the crash was “traffic control devices disregarded.” 

This is typical for the dataset. Of the 28 crashes, 26 were on dry road conditions, 17 were in clear conditions (only four were in rain or snowy weather; the rest were in cloudy conditions), and 20 occurred during the daytime. 

There were 22 crashes involving more than one vehicle, and the same number of crashes were attributable to some combination of failure to yield the right-of-way, driver inattention, or failure to obey traffic controls; data was not included for an additional four crashes. 

The crash with the most vehicles involved — five — occurred under these most common conditions on a September afternoon in 2011 and was attributed to failure to yield right-of-way. 

Only one crash — occurring at 1:15 a.m. and involving one vehicle, resulting in one fatality — had speed listed as a factor.