WSET.com - ABC13Safety Improvement Plans on I-81

Reporter: David Tate

Botetourt Co., VA - In the past few months alone, there have been several accidents on Interstate 81 and some were deadly, and many are wondering what is being done to keep people family safe when riding down that stretch of road.

Officials have been implementing a variety of safety features on I-81 over the past decade or so but are now in the middle of some of the last safety projects that interstate will see for some time.

Truckers like Joel Brem from Ft. Chiswell knows just what needs to be done to stay safe out there.

"If we all use just a little bit of common sense and try to stay out of each other's way as much as possible we can all get where we are going in plenty of time and do it safely," said Brem.

The Virginia Department of Transportation is also doing their part to make 81 safer, including adding truck lanes not only in Rockbridge County, but in Montgomery County where five new miles of truck lanes are going in.

But once those projects are done, say goodbye to anymore major projects in the near future, except one smaller safety project scheduled for this summer in the deadly curves at Buchanan. There have been several wrecks there recently.

"It was identified as sort of a trouble spot along I-81, and we were able to get some safety funds to correct some of the issues in that curve," said Jason Bond with VDOT.

But the bigger unaddressed problem is actually congestion, and none of these projects helps that.

"We don't have the funds identified at this point to do any kind of widespread construction or widening of 81," said Bond.

Imagine everyday on I-81 looking like the Sunday after Thanksgiving; that's what VDOT projects as the norm in less than 25 years.

Believe it or not, even with all these crashes we have had lately on I-81, the twisting stretch of interstate through Virginia's mountains is actually one of Virginia's safest.

In fact between 2000 and 2008, I-81 scored the lowest crash rate and lowest serious crash rate among the six interstates in the Commonwealth.