Kansas Turnpike

Three people are injured including one critically after an accident along the Kansas Turnpike. It happened just after 7:00 this evening along I35 near 103 street South. Crews had to block the southbound left in as they cleaned up the scene.

The storm system that swept out into our area Monday bringing heavy rain and storms to central and eastern Kansas will continue to spin away from us Tuesday. The heaviest rainfall was along and southeast of the Kansas Turnpike where some spots picked up over two inches. A mix of rain and snow should continue in the west throughout the day as colder air wraps around the backside of Monday's storm system. Parts of western Kansas could pick-up 2-4 inches of snow by Tuesday afternoon.

A multiple vehicle crash on the Kansas Turnpike injures several people. The accident happened around 8:30 Friday night south of the Mulvane exit soutbound. Turnpike dispatch tells Eyewitness News that nine people were hurt, one critically. One lane southbound remains closed as of ten o'clock. The cause of the accident is still under investigation. There was another accident in the same area about an hour before.

A double decker animal trailer carrying more than 220 goats blew a tire and rolled into a ditch, near 47 th Street South and the Kansas Turnpike, authorities said. About a half dozen goats were killed in the Friday morning accident.  The trailer was demolished and goats spilled into a grassy area separating the north and south lanes of the turnpike. No people were hurt. Lois Faller of Minnesota, told Eyewitness News she picked up the load of goats in Purcell, Oklahoma Friday morning and was driving them back home, where her son cares for and sells the animals.

Four people are hospitalized, two of them in critical condition, after a semi fire along the Kansas Turnpike just north of the K-96 exit in East Wichita early Tuesday. Troopers say an SUV was pulling another SUV on a trailer when a tire blew, a semi following behind them didn't realize what was happening and crashed into the vehicles.  The semi's fuel tank burstopen, spilling gas everywhere and catching fire. All four victims were in the SUV at the time of the crash.  The semi driver was not hurt.

Changes are coming to the Kansas Turnpike exit 19 toll plaza; that's the exit for Wellington. The exit is getting new self-pay toll machines. Instead of handing money to a person, people can use cash or a credit card. The machines work much like grocery store self check-outs. The machines are used most of the time at lower-traffic exits. The turnpike also has some that they use during low-traffic hours, but use people to take tolls during high-traffic times. The first self-pay machines were installed in December 2009 at an exit in northeast Kansas.

You can see the signs, just don't follow them yet. Thursday, crews from the Kansas Department of Transportation started replacing 70 mph signs with new 75 mph signs on some Kansas highways. It's part of a new law raising the speed limit on certain highways. The issue is that the law does not go into effect until July 1st, which is Friday. That means, even though the signs say 75, drivers are expected to follow the old limits until Friday. The new speed limit affects much of I-135 north of Wichita, most of I-70 and the Kansas Turnpike.

Beginning July 1, traffic will speed up on some Kansas highways as the speed limit increases to 75 mph. The new maximum speed limit was passed by the Legislature this year. It allows for the higher speed limit on certain separated, controlled access highways with interchanges. A committee with the Kansas Department of Transportation selected highways which will receive the higher speed limit. The highways becoming 75mph are: • I-70 from the Colorado state line to just west of Topeka in Shawnee County.

A woman dies after a crash along the Kansas Turnpike.  It happened just south of the Mulvane exit late Sunday. A trooper tell us a 15-year-old was driving his mother's car on the way home to Texas when he somehow left the road, struck an abandoned vehicle, and spun out on the highway. A truck full of teenagers stopped to help...then a third vehicle struck the car in the road, hitting a woman and two teenagers. The 32-year-old woman was taken to a Wichita hospital, where she later died.

The driver was going the wrong way on the Kansas Turnpike. The crash killed him along with three members of a family in the van he hit. A mother, her son and daughter died, but one daughter survived. Eyewitness News Reporter Denise Hnytka was invited to attend a memorial for the three members of the Choi family, as loved ones look back on the past year. There are the violent images of the crash, but one year later, there are the images of a family who gathers to remember. "That accident happened in split seconds," said Mark Park.