GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ) – The aftermath of a massive wreck in Green Bay last week is coming in the form of driver citations.
The Green Bay Police Department announced on Wednesday that ten citations are being issued to drivers involved in last week’s pileup on the Leo Frigo Bridge.
Police say eleven separate crashes took place in the 30-vehicle pile-up on March 5.
“Officers are usually accustomed to investigating a crash with one, two, maybe three vehicles involved,” explains Commander Kevin Warych, with the Green Bay Police Department. “But when thirty vehicles are involved it was very complex.”
The process of learning more about what led to the wreck involved reviewing both video and gaining first-hand insight.
“In this crash investigation, we had to speak with all the witnesses, all the drivers, look at all the video, and conclude what the root cause of each crash was,” says Commander Warych.
That review process led to ten separate citations being issued.
Five of the citations are being issued for “auto-following too closely” and the other five were issued for “driving too fast for conditions.”
“They determined what the root cause is and they concluded that some drivers were just driving too fast for conditions,” he explains.
Unfortunately, that unsafe driving practice is all too common.
“Driving too fast for conditions is a frequent offense when we live in four seasons,” says Commander Warych.
He adds that often times vehicles drive too close to one another and this was a situation in which it escalated what could have been a minor accident into a major wreck.
“Auto following too closely is another common traffic violation where we see people just not giving ample time to slow their vehicle down in the event that something were to happen in front of them,” he says.
Officer Warych says that neither citation is more severe than the other and both are considered to be uniform traffic citations.
Thankfully, there were no serious injuries that resulted from the wreck.
