HANOVER COUNTY, Va. (WTVR) – A 21-year-old year driver has been charged for causing an accident that closed Interstate 95 for several hours Friday morning.
All lanes of Interstate 95 at Lewistown Rd. reopened around 2 p.m. following the three-vehicle accident that shutdown southbound lanes around 11:30 a.m. Traffic was backed up for nine miles and VDOT said residual traffic backups remained after the lanes reopened.
“I just got off Route 301 at Atlee Station Road and traffic is backed up for miles and moving very slow,” Terri Hessa reported via email. “Police on motorcycles are at stop lights trying to help get traffic through. My 15 minute trip to post office turned into 1 hour and 15 minutes.”
The accident involved a tractor-trailer, a RV and a pick-up truck.
“The crash occurred when the driver of a 2012 Ford E-450 RV ran off the right side of the roadway and overcorrected,” Virginia State Police spokesman Sgt. Tom Molnar wrote in an email. “The RV came back into the travel lane and struck the 2007 Peterbuilt Tractor-Trailer causing the tractor-trailer to strike a 2008 Ford F-250 pick-up. The RV’s impact with the tractor-trailer caused the tractor-trailer to run off the left side of the roadway and jackknife striking the guardrail. The F-250 ran off the right side of the roadway.”
RV driver Saaj Parikh, 21, of Marriottsville, Md., was charged with reckless driving, according to state police. Two people in the RV were taken to the hospital with minor injuries.
