Elyria Teen Killed In Crash.

Date: 06/15/2007
Time: Around 12:30 A.M.
Location: Near Wakeman, Ohio
Vehicle(s) Involved: Ford F-150

By TMCNews

"The Ohio State Highway Patrol says that Jake P. Nolan, 18 of Elyria, was the driver of the Ford F-150 that crashed into the woods on Gore Orphanage Road late last night.

In a media release the State Patrol says that Nolan was southbound on Gore Orphanage when he “failed to negotiate a curve” around 12:30am. The truck then struck a guard rail and a tree before coming to rest deep in the woods. Nolan was not wearing a safety belt and was ejected from the truck. Nolan was pronounced dead at the scene.

Drug and alcohol use is unknown at this time. The State Patrol said the crash remains under investigation.

During a conversation with TMC NEWS late last night at the scene, Lt. Peterson from the State Patrol said that counting this crash the number of fatal crashes for Lorain County this year is 10, there were 27 total in 2006. “This is actually our 4th fatal crash up here in Vermilion, Henrietta Township so we are going to start a Problem Behavior Identification Zone; we’re going to start working a little more diligently in this northern corner.” Last year the State Patrol did the same program in the southern portion of the county after there were 14 fatal crashes in that area. To this point there has only been one fatal cash in the southern townships this year and that was involving the farm tractor.

Peterson said that in all 4 fatal crashes in the northern area involved “aggressive driving”. “In other words there was excessive speed involved, alcohol involved and these are the kinds of things that if we’re up here and we can maybe stop them through educational things, engineering things. It’s like this crash, is there anything we can do to make this a safer curve, maybe bring the county garage out and look at their signs to see if there is anything they can do with that.”

Stop signs or not Lt. Peterson said it always comes back to the driver. “It always comes down to the driver, driving within reasonable means that he can always stop whatever the situation might be.”  "

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