crash

Car Crashes Into Tree on George Mason Drive

By Ethan Rothstein
1/6

A driver suffering from an apparent medical emergency drove his car off the road and into a tree this afternoon in Douglas Park.

The driver was attended to by medical personnel and ultimately taken to the hospital. According to police sources, the driver lost control of his car driving northbound on S. George Mason Drive, mere feet from the intersection with Four Mile Run Drive, just before 3:00 p.m.

The road was closed briefly as fire and police personnel responded to the crash, but it has since reopened.

Airbags deployed and the windshield shattered. The car, a Dodge Avenger, is likely totaled, suffering severe front end damage. There’s no word on the severity of the driver’s injuries.

Northbound GW Parkway Diverted

By ARLnow.com

Update at 12:10 a.m. — All lanes have reopened.

All lanes of the northbound George Washington Parkway are being temporarily diverted due to an earlier accident, according to D.C. police.

The accident happened this morning just prior to Route 123.

“Recovery operations” related to the accident have prompted the temporary closure. Traffic is being diverted onto the Spout Run Parkway, police said.

Two-Vehicle Crash Takes Out Traffic Signal on Lee Highway

By ARLnow.com
1/7

(Updated at 3:45 p.m.) A two-vehicle collision flattened a traffic signal and caused some traffic disruptions on Lee Highway this afternoon.

The crash happened between 2:30 and 3:00 p.m., on Lee Highway between Spout Run and the I-66 overpass. An SUV and a commercial van were involved in the wreck, which knocked over a traffic light in the median.

“One car was coming from the 66 off ramp and the other was driving on Lee Highway,” a witness told ARLnow.com.

Police on scene believe the slick roads may have been a factor. So far, no injuries have been reported. Police are remaining on scene while tow crews prepare to haul away the vehicles.

The county’s traffic engineering department has been notified of the damaged signal. According to officers, the signal that was knocked down will not significantly affect the intersection’s safety, and no officers will be needed to help with traffic flow.

Police Investigating Fatal Pentagon City Crash

By ARLnow.com

Police car (file photo)A Maryland man died in a single-vehicle crash in Pentagon City Thursday night.

The incident happened around 10:15 p.m. Police say 60-year-old John Dawson, of Clinton, Md., was turning left onto 15th Street S. from S. Eads Street when he struck a pole.

Dawson was transported to George Washington University hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

The Arlington County Police Department’s critical accident team responded to the scene. Investigators are still trying to determine if Dawson’s death was caused by the crash or was the result of a medical emergency that occurred just before the crash, according to ACPD spokesman Dustin Sternbeck.

First Snow of 2015: Roads Covered, Schools Open

By ARLnow.com

Snow on Route 50 in Arlington at 6:00 a.m. (photo courtesy J. Sonder)

(Updated at 7:30 a.m.) Roads are covered with white, powdery snow as Arlington and the rest of the D.C. region gets its first snow of the year and first measurable snow of the season.

Several accidents have been reported around Arlington as an inch or so of snow has made driving treacherous. The crashes are happening throughout the county — on I-395, Glebe Road at Route 50, Wilson Blvd and elsewhere.

The Wilson Blvd crash, at N. Larrimore Street, reportedly involves several vehicles. Wilson Blvd is shut down between N. Kensington and Larrimore Streets as of 7:00 a.m.

Cars and buses are struggling to make it up hills, particularly on neighborhood streets. Police have asked a salt truck to expedite to 16th Street N. near Virginia Hospital Center, as hospital employees and other drivers are having trouble making it up a hill.

Arlington snow crews “are out treating primary and secondary roads through the morning snow,” according to the Dept. of Environmental Services.

ART buses are running this morning, but delays are likely.

“Roads and sidewalks have become very slippery,” ART said in an alert. “ART routes are running but delays are expected.”

Students, meanwhile, will be disappointed to know that Arlington Public Schools has not seen fit to delay school as a result of the snow. The school system announced this morning that it’s opening on time, on a normal schedule.

School are opening on time in the District of Columbia and Fairfax County, as well.

VDOT has reported 21 crashes in Northern Virginia as of 6:55 a.m.

Photo courtesy J. Sonder

ART Buses Crash at Nearly the Same Rate as Metrobuses

By Ethan Rothstein

Six vehicles involved in crash at Columbia Pike and S. Dinwiddie StreetDespite some reader sentiment that Arlington Transit’s ART buses drive dangerously, incident records from Arlington and WMATA appear to debunk any claim that ART bus drivers crash at a significantly higher rate than other urban bus drivers.

According to crash statistics provided by Arlington’s Department of Environmental Services, ART buses have had 26 “preventable accidents” this year, a rate of 2.23 accidents per 100,000 miles of revenue service. This number accounts for minor scrapes, including incidents in the ART bus depot.

ART bus drivers came under renewed scrutiny last week when one was charged with reckless driving after causing a seven-car crash on Columbia Pike last week, sending four people to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. That driver, 26-year-old Agere Sileshi, had been driving in “revenue service” for four weeks, and is “currently on administrative leave,” according to DES spokesman Eric Balliet.

Sileshi is an employee of contractor National Express Transit, which declined comment through a spokesperson on Sileshi’s employment status and ART bus’ driving records. Sileshi was driving in the Columbia Pike Plaza parking lot and the bus was out of service when the crash occurred. Balliet said “no ART route goes into that parking lot.”

Balliet said the average crash rate for buses in “an urban environment” is between 1.0 and 2.0, but many jurisdictions do not tally the minor incidents Arlington does. WMATA also counts those incidents, and, according to spokesman Dan Stessel, Metrobus’ rate in 2013 was 2.16 per 100,000 miles — just under ART’s 2.23 accident rate.

“You can rack up a lot of ‘collisions’ during the overnight hours as hundreds of buses are moved around tight spaces in bus depots for service, cleaning and refueling,” Stessel noted.

Balliet pointed out that ART has received high safety marks in recent years, including an American Public Transportation Association’s Gold Safety Award in 2011, an award for the service’s pedestrian safety training in 2012 and had a 90 percent satisfaction rate in a 2013 ridership survey. Baillet also says every ART bus driver must go through 120 hours of operator training.

Despite the statistical evidence, some around Arlington have said it’s only a matter of time before an ART bus causes more serious injuries. Serkan Altan, a Columbia Pike resident, has been contacting Arlington transit officials complaining about their drivers’ behavior.

“ART bus drivers are driving crazy in my area, especially around Dinwiddie Street,” Altan wrote in an email. “ART supervisors… were made aware of the safety issues with its [reckless] drivers, especially in that area where I live. They should be held liable.”

UPDATED: ART Bus Driver Charged After Seven-Vehicle Wreck

By Ethan Rothstein
1/8

(Updated at 12:50 p.m. Tuesday) Seven vehicles — five cars, an ART bus and a mixing truck — were involved in a collision at about 5:45 p.m. at the intersection of Columbia Pike and S. Dinwiddie Street.

According to Arlington County Police Department spokesman Lt. Kip Malcolm, the ART bus was in the parking lot of Columbia Pike Plaza when a car turned in front of it. The ART bus, driven by 26-year-old Agere Sileshi, struck the car, at which point Sileshi lost control of the bus, Malcolm said.

The bus pushed the car into a parked vehicle, Sileshi accelerated and pushed all three vehicles over the brick retaining wall and onto S. Dinwiddie Street, Malcolm said. There, the bus hit three cars stopped at a red light, creating another chain reaction in which the seventh vehicle, a parked car, was pushed into benches and a tree on the sidewalk in front of Arlington Mill Community Center.

Sileshi was charged with reckless driving for failure to control her vehicle, Malcolm said. Three motorists were transported from the scene with non-life-threatening injuries, as was one pedestrian “struck by flying debris.”

Westbound Columbia Pike was closed for more than an hour around the scene as emergency crews from Arlington and Fairfax sort out the aftermath, which included cars strewn all over the intersection and a substantial part of the brick wall along Dinwiddie Street destroyed.

In addition to the cars and walls damaged, several bicycles parked in front of Arlington Mill Community Center were damaged in the accident, and at least two benches affixed to the ground were either destroyed or displaced.

SUV Jumps Curb, Nearly Hits Bluemont Park Sign

By Ethan Rothstein
1/6

An SUV jumped the curb, crashed through a wooden fence, took out a stop sign and came to a stop just before the Bluemont Park sign in a single-vehicle accident this afternoon.

At about 3:30 p.m., a teenage driver was involved in the crash at the corner of Wilson Blvd and N. Manchester Street and fled the scene down the nearby W&OD trail. The driver returned soon after and was being questioned by police.

Airbags deployed in the vehicle, but there were no injuries reported.

Mom Struck By Car While Loading Kids into SUV

By ARLnow.com

Police car (file photo)(Updated at 1:00 p.m.) A woman was struck by a car on Little Falls Road Friday night, in an accident eerily similar to one that claimed the life of an Arlington mother earlier this year.

The incident happened at 11:22 p.m. on the 6000 block of Little Falls Road, just a block or two from where the Feb. 24 crash occurred. Police say a woman was loading her small children into an SUV on the eastbound side of the road when a vehicle traveling eastbound swerved across the bike lane and struck the parked SUV, pushing it onto the sidewalk.

The woman, a 31-year-old Vienna resident, suffered serious but non-life-threatening injuries, according to police. Her children, ages 6 months and 2 years old, were not injured.

The SUV was legally parked, noted police spokesman Lt. Kip Malcolm.

The striking vehicle came to rest in the eastbound lanes, after a 180 degree spin. The driver, identified as 54-year-old Arlington resident Susan Geigan, is currently free on bond after being charged with DUI, Malcolm said.

Geigan was not injured. Additional charges may be pending.

“It’s the holiday season and unfortunately we see more people taking the risk of getting behind the wheel while intoxicated,” said Malcolm.

The crash is improbably similar to the fatal accident on Feb. 24, which occurred just down the street. In that incident, a dump truck struck a woman on westbound Little Falls Road, across from Nottingham Elementary, as she was loading her young child into a minivan.

The victim later died. The driver of the dump truck was charged with a traffic infraction — alcohol was not a factor, police said. Another difference: there was no bike lane between traffic and parked cars on the stretch of Little Falls Road in front of the school.

Police are working with the county’s Dept. of Environmental Services on potential safety-enhancing changes to Little Falls Road, according to spokesman Lt. Kip Malcolm.

Cyclist Struck in Two-Car Wreck

By ARLnow.com
1/4

A bicyclist was struck and injured by a car near Memorial Circle last night.

The accident happened between 7:00 and 7:30 p.m. on a northbound ramp from the GW Parkway to Memorial Circle and Memorial Bridge.

Initial reports suggest a taxicab rear-ended a car that had stopped to let a group of bicyclists cross the road at a crosswalk. The car then struck at least one of the cyclists.

U.S. Park Police spokeswoman Lelani Woods would only confirm that a cyclist was struck and was taken to a local hospital with non-life threatening injuries.

View More Stories