WASHINGTON -
It's been two months since four women were killed in a wrong way crash on I-75 near Bowling Green. Three were sorority sisters from BGSU. In Washington D.C., the National Transportation Safety Board is in the middle of a study specifically investigating wrong-way driving crashes.
Leaders inside the organization tell us fatal wrong way crashes are happening all around the country -- in populated areas, in rural areas, involving younger drivers and involving older drivers.
Why do these crashes keep happening here? And what will it take to stop them?
The NTSB is looking for answers, studying crash cases like those that happened on I-75 in March. Three BGSU sorority sisters were on their way to the airport for a spring break trip, when a wrong way driver hit and killed them. The driver also died.
Then, just 10 days later, a wrong way driver slammed into a truck. The driver and passenger were killed.
In March alone there were four separate wrong way driver reports.
"There are a lot of different reasons why people might be doing this," says NTSB Chairwoman Deborah Hersman. "We're looking at accidents where alcohol might be a factor. We're looking at accidents where distraction might be a factor. The ability to see or read signs, age - a lot of issues might be a factor."
The word "might" makes all the difference. There isn't enough data yet to know exactly what's happening on our highways.
"I have a big concern about it," says Senator Rob Portman. "One of the specific areas that I have been involved with is what's called drugged driving, not just drunk driving. With the increasing incidents of prescription drug abuse and increased heroin use in northwest Ohio, it's more of an issue."
"There are fewer of these kinds of accidents than there used to be," says Senator Sherrod Brown. "Modernizing our highway system, passing a highway bill, continuing this progress is a big part of that."
Not every lawmaker thinks more bills are the answer to the problem.
"I'm not sure that there is a legislative remedy to this, but I would be willing to listen to any ideas," says Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey.
There certainly are some big ideas out there: high tech technology called Vehicle-to-Infrastructure Communication and Vehicle-to-Vehicle Communication -- basically, cars that talk to each other and to the roadways. Shorter wrong way signs, police stop sticks, highway sensors embedded in the asphalt, blinking red lights, and arrow-shaped road bumps have all been floated as solutions.
"It's about looking at the human, looking at the vehicle, and also looking at the environment and helping to identify countermeasures to improve all of those," Hersman says.
The NTSB study comes out in December. Chairwoman Hersman says she's looking at a lot of data, trying to learn from the crashes. The Safety Board will eventually make recommendations. Ultimately though, it will be up to each state to make their own changes to prevent wrong way crashes from happening in the future.
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