the grand Parkway in Fort Bend County is
a vital corridor for people living in
areas like Greatwood new territory and
Pecan Grove but this new section of toll
road has been the scene of several
deadly accidents over the past 14 months
Channel 2 investigates notice that trend
and began digging through crash records
our investigator Joel Eisen Baum
examined the roadway from the air and on
the ground tonight he's revealing
potential dangers along that stretch of
road and he's taking those concerns to
the tollways top leaders whether you
know it as 99 or the Grand Parkway
channel 2 investigates has discovered
that part of it has a big problem why
are we not taking any looks of this
stuff on this 12 and a half mile
meandering stretch of road between
highway 59 on one end and the west part
toll way on the other end there are a
lot of accidents we do have a lot of
accidents in fact in and around Houston
we challenge you to find a deadlier
dozen miles nine fatal accidents here
over just the last 14 months it raises
questions about the highway itself I
think that they opened it as a tall way
with 65 mile an hour speed zone
prematurely
James Barthelemy is an accident
reconstructionist he says this section
of toll road the old 99 wasn't
originally designed to be a toll road at
all this section of the Grande Parkway
opened unfinished and it stayed that way
this part of the Graham Parkway is just
kind of weird we're just south of Bel
Air where you're flying down the highway
at highway speeds but now the road is
suddenly curved on each side just down
the way there's a sweeping curve you
have to contend with it's when you're
high up in the air you realize you're
traveling freeway speeds on the feeder
road
what we're looking at is grand Parkway
frontage road that's being used as main
lanes it is right now
last year there were two separate fatal
accidents in this area drunk drivers
caused those wrecks but in three other
deadly accidents not involving alcohol
drivers ran off the road in sections
with little or no guardrail if this
would have happened at between 11 and 12
o'clock it had been catastrophic this
big rig managed to cross the median and
opposite lanes of traffic before ending
up inside a restaurant then just two
miles south and four months later that
was a
something no parent wants to hear she
was such a presence nineteen year old
Brittany Reddington was on her way home
from work when her car inexplicably left
the road 570 feet later at more than 70
miles per hour she slammed into this
concrete sign support there was no
intoxication her mom will never know if
a continuous guardrail or barrier a
common feature on most modern toll roads
would have saved Brittany's life I don't
think she would have hit the pillar I
don't think her car would have split
open
Brittany Reddington was the second
person to die after hitting one of these
concrete pillars many of these signs are
not protected by guardrails and not
required to be add it all up the twists
and turns the varying pavement cars
constantly exiting and entering to avoid
tolls does it equal trouble you have so
many different elements coming together
do you think that it's causing a problem
if if there's some reason that it's
causing a problem we can't identify the
common reason the grand parkway in this
area has no scheduled completion date
but the chief of the Fort Bend County
toll road Authority is taking action
we've got more about his plan on
click2houston.com click the investigates
tab Joe lies and mom KPRC Channel 2 News