50949_WKBW_7_Problem_Solvers_658x90.png

Actions

Accidents drop in months after deadly 198 crash

Posted
and last updated

One year after the deadly Delaware Park crash, many people have called for the speed to increase on either side of the park. 

The speed limit was reduced from 50 to 30 in the days after a 3-year-old was killed in the park by a driver who veered off Rt. 198.

Michael DeLuca, from the Scajaquada Corridor Coalition, supports reducing the entire area to 30 miles per hour.  Still, he says more needs to be done to stop drivers from going fast.

"Nothing has changed on the road significantly.  Sometimes you just get on and you're driving like you have for the last 50 years, except the speed limit.  I don't blame drivers, because you just forget," DeLuca said. 

Is there a potential for speed to go up outside the park?  A spokesman for the State Department of Transportation tells 7 Eyewitness News, they are legally required to review the speed limit, before big picture changes are made.  The spokesman says public input will have some weight in their decision.

Radar signs were added to remind drivers of their speed, after the crash.  More are expected in the coming months. 

New data from the Buffalo Police department shows crashes have gone down in the six months after the deadly crash.

Between June and December, 2015, there were 139 complaints, or accidents reported.  That's actually down from the same time in 2014.

When the speed limit was still 50 miles per hour in 2014, Buffalo police logged a total of 214 complaints or accidents.

We went back even further, to 2010 to see if there was a trend.  Buffalo police reported a total of nearly 250 accidents or complaints.

Among all those crashes, there was none as detrimental as the crash that killed 3-year-old Maksym Sugorovskiy.