byterian Church. He was a son of the late Charles and Rose Houchins Meredith and husband of the late Dorothy Bryant Meredith.

An accident Sunday on Interstate 65 claimed five lives near Park City. The wreck was just the latest in a history of horrific accidents on the interstate. Photo by Joe Imel

At least three people, maybe more, might be alive today if a concrete barrier split the median along a deadly stretch of Interstate 65, according to the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration. Its possible that a concrete barrier, or Jersey wall, could have stopped an out-of-control southbound car from crossing the median, going airborne and crashing into the top of a northbound car Sunday, said Tim Hurd, media relations chief for NHTSA in Washington. The obvious thing is you put a Jersey wall down the center of the middle lane, Hurd said. Theyre designed to separate traffic lanes. In the aftermath of Sundays four-vehicle crash, which state police are attributing to excessive speed, five people were dead and three more were injured. The identities of the man and woman in the speeding southbound car are not being released, but police said their car crossed the median and landed on top of a second car, killing its driver, Trevor D. Sharrett, 64, and his passengers, Dixie C. Sharrett, 56, and Patricia L. Foster, 47, all of New Castle, Ind. While Jersey walls are the preferred option, North Carolina is taking a novel approach to traffic safety in the wake of several median-crossing accidents, said Rudy Umbs, a spokesman for the Federal Highway Administration. The state is installing three-cable guardrails, which wont stop a tractor-trailer truck but are capable of stopping a car or light truck from crossing a median, Umbs said. In August 1999, a tractor-trailer truck crossed the median and killed a Bowling Green woman when it struck her sports utility vehicle head-on and pushed it to the edge of I-65s Barren River Bridge, where the vehicle was overwhelmed by flames. Kentuckys southern half of I-65 is susceptible to median-crossing, multifatal crashes and has a reputation among drivers and police as a death trap. In 1998, the most recent year for which statistics are available, Kentucky police recorded 18 fatalities along Kentuckys 137 miles of I-65 between Louisville and Tennessee. Eleven of those fatalities happened in the stretch of I-65 that passes through Warren and its surrounding counties, state police Lt. Kevin Payne of Frankfort said. In the largest and most horrendous crash, seven lives were lost in 1998 when an SUV struck a large steel object that was laying in the middle of the interstate near the Oakland exit. The Kentucky Department of Transportation recorded more than 31,650 vehicles passing through the area of Sundays crash each day, and some say its too many, too fast. Bowling Green resident Chad Davis often makes the drive from Bowling Greens Scottsville Road exit to its Louisville Road exit and fears for the safety of two precious passengers his children, ages 3 and 7, he said. Davis said he hopes more police issuing more tickets along the 65 mph interstate might help the problem. Its just a scary road at times, Davis said. Were doing 70, and people are just zooming by us. Interstate 65 begins in Gary, Ind., and winds 884 miles along a southern route through such major cities as Indianapolis; Louisville; Nashville, Tenn.; and Birmingham and Montgomery, Ala.; before ending in Mobile, Ala. Alabama contains the longest stretch of I-65, followed by Indiana, Kentucky and Tennessee. State police in the Post 3 area record fatalities by putting colored push pins in a map of their coverage area at the Nashville Road headquarters. Clusters of the colored pins, each representing a life lost in a crash, crowd I-65s route as it meanders toward Tennessee. The most deadly year in recent record 1996 shows 17 fatalities along I-65s route through Warren and surrounding counties, state police said. More recently, state police in Bowling Green recorded 11 fatalities each in 1997 and 1998 and 12 in 1999, state police said. As of Sunday, the roads current regional fatality rate for 2000 already stands at 11, police records indicate. While Indiana with 262 miles has almost twice the length of I-65 as Kentucky, that state counted just 25 fatalities in 1999, Indiana State Police administrative assistant Glenda Allen said. Roughly 366 miles, or 38 percent, of I-65 runs through Alabama, and state law enforcement authorities there recorded 52 fatalities along the route in 1999, Alabama Department of Public Safety spokeswoman Mary Hasselwander said. Information about fatalities on Tennessees 119 miles of I-65 were unavailable.