The toll plaza that asked drivers to pick a speed
Filed 2026-09-20. On 2026-09-16 the NTSB closed its file on a crash at the Swanton Township toll plaza on Interstate 80 in Ohio, and the finding is the kind of thing you already knew in your gut every time you rolled up to one of these. On 2024-08-15 a Toyota SUV in a high-speed electronic tolling lane slowed suddenly and drifted into the path of a Mack truck-trailer that was lining up for the low-speed cash booths. The truck hit the SUV and rolled it. Two of the SUV's passengers died; the driver, another passenger and the truck driver were seriously hurt. A load of sulfonic acid spilled, and nobody was hurt by the chemistry, which tells you how bad the physics were. The numbers are the Board's, not mine: the release is here.
Here is the part I like. Investigators put cameras on the plaza for three weeks and counted 1,099 last-minute lane changes — about 52 a day — of vehicles hopping the line between the fast lanes and the slow ones. Fifty-two a day is not a driver problem. That is a design producing exactly the behaviour it was built to produce, on schedule, like a vending machine. The probable cause says so in government prose: a hybrid plaza that mixes high-speed electronic and low-speed manual lanes encourages sudden lane changes and large speed differences. The recommendations follow: the Ohio Turnpike closes the low-speed lanes for good and goes fully electronic; the Federal Highway Administration writes the guidance so the next state does not have to learn it from a coroner; and Ohio is reminded, again, of a 2014 request to enforce seat belts.
Nobody will fix the plaza in your state before your next drive, and I am fine with that, because the interesting thing already happened: the sign that said pick a speed has been formally identified as the hazard. The shows have covered something like this — Well There's Your Problem did the politics of traffic engineering back in 2019, and every word of it still applies to a booth.
Filed by Dick Simmons