Authorities have released the name of the driver killed in a motorcycle wreck near 147th and Oak Park Avenue Saturday night.
Matteo Manueli, 34, of Alsip, has been identified as the driver of the motorcycle, the Chicago Tribune reports.
The driver appeared to have lost control while driving at about 8:45 p.m., said Oak Forest Police Lt. John Koschnitzky. The roadway and weather were clear last night.
Koschnitzky said the victim wasn't wearing a helmet.
The driver was taken to Palos Community Hospital. Police were at the scene of the crash until early Sunday morning.
Personnel from the Cook County Sheriff's Office and Oak Forest's Police and Fire departments were at the crash.
The South Suburban Major Accident Reconstruction Team is investigating the crash. It is not known if alcohol was a factor.
To say it's worse with stoplights is ridiculous. It's 100 times better with stop lights. There are signs there indicating there is a curve. If you don't slow down when approaching a curve, well, then you're reckless. It's careless driving and not obeying the speed limit.
As for the intersection- the traffic lights are not the problem . It's the way people drive. I drive through this area every day and have seen how ignorant driver's are. They travel well over the posted speed limit, they roll through the red light to make a right turn and some just ignore stoplight . I have even seen a driver try to race through the yellow at a high rate of speed and end up in the ditch. Add alcohol to the equation ... you are obviously going to have an accident there . Too many people feel invincible when they drive . Obey the rules of the rules of the road and you won't have an accident.
Without being there when the motorcyclist crashed I can only speculate, but one possibility is an animal (coyote or something that would have crashed him) ran across the road in front of him to cause him to lose control. Again, this is just a possibility being a complete accident. Helmets should be worn. I think the lights are way better than the stop-signs. Maybe the county could put up more signage right after the light warning of a sharp curve, but then again when people don't pay attention to signs it won't help.
Another contributing factor to the accident was the wind. It was extremely windy that night and there were power failures probably due to wind damage to lines in Orland/Tinley area. Motorcycles don't handle well in windy conditions.
If it was not alcohol, there are 2 things that are hard to know without being there. Was it a gust of wind, debris from the wind in the roadway maybe, or was it an animal running across the road. If you are a responsible driver those things would still make you panic and being on a motorcycle its a different result than a car. Even worse result when you are NOT wearing a helmet. Without being there at the time, you can't really say what initially caused him to lose control. Being a NORTHbound direction of travel though you can rule out the stoplight as any part of the initial/primary cause here.
It is a very heavily traveled intersection and to have it controlled with outdated methods such as stop signs is insane. People rarely signaled there when there were stop signs. There was no left turn lane from eastbound 147th onto northbound Justamere Rd. I remember seeing traffic westbound backed up to Ridgeland. Are emergency vehicles supposed to sit there and wait their turn? Now stoplights have traffic signal preemption, so they can change the light to green and have traffic move through the intersection. It's not about sitting in traffic a few extra minutes. You'd have more accidents with stop signs with that volume of traffic. How many instances have we had when approaching a stop sign intersection and "IT'S MY TURN!" to go and every corner has a car AS WELL as people in left turn lanes? ...
151/Central had stop signs for years with left turn lanes. It was dicey at times going through there especially turning left with other cars at the intersection. Now there's lights and traffic flows much more smoothly and safely. Can you envision stop signs at 159/Central or 159/Cicero? Keep in mind so far we don't know any details on the cause other than weather conditions and the roadway were clear It's a completely absurd argument to think putting stop signs BACK is going to "force" people to slow down going through a well lit curve with signage that they should know full well as responsible drivers to negotiate at the posted speed limit.
North bound drivers usually try to hug the inside of the curve. There is a soft shoulder along with a culvert beyond the rubble strip. If your right wheel goes off the road your while driving above the post speed your car will be on its lid. Great solution -drop the speed limit to 25. Then drivers will hit the curve only at 30. Another reason they county could not change the road was the forest preserve property and a pipeline that run under the north section of Oak park
I have called the Oak Forest City Hall asking for help to get guard rails ( or any other safety feature) installed along the curve on 147th and Oak Park Ave (by the curve/light) I even spent a day calling the Dept of Transportation trying to get help with this matter and no luck!!! My question is how many more individuals need to get hurt or killed before something is done about this intersection? It is deadly and unfortunately there will be more injuries if there is no solution to this problem. 3 souls have been lost at this intersection. 3 precious individuals. When will Oak Forest or the Dept of transportation realize it is time to step forward and do something!!!! Our block is inconvenienced by the back up of traffic but I cannot imagine anyone sacrificing a few more minutes to save a life.
I did not go out and inspect the scene. The only thing that should matter is another person lost their life. Regardless of location on the street, guard rails, speed limits or light locations, this intersection/approach to the curve needs to be identified as a problematic and deadly intersection. It needs to be reconfigured so those who DO NOT live in Oak Forest or do not know about these incidents can have a safe road to travel on and those who DO live in Oak Forest will take a moment to slow down for the turn. I think we can all agree the main concern is for another person to avoid injuries or even death! When people come together to solve this problem it will be better for everyone whether they live in O.F. or not.