Head-on crash on Route 85 injures three
SLINGERLANDS – Another head-on crash on Route 85 took place on Saturday, Nov. 22 just north of Blessing Road, sending three men to the hospital.
At 5:15 p.m. Slingerlands and North Bethlehem fire departments were dispatched to Route 85, just north of Blessing Road for an unknown vehicle crash.
When Slingerlands Fire Chief Craig Sleurs arrived, he said he found two vehicles that hit almost head on and occupants in both vehicles needed to be extracted.
One vehicle was driven by a younger male driver and the other was by an older male driver with an older passenger, police said. Police said that names and ages are not being released at this time.
Sleurs then requested Westmere Fire Department to assist with the rescue.
Once removed, all of the occupants were transported to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries by Delmar-Bethlehem EMS and Albany County ambulances.
A crash on Route 85 on Saturday, Nov. 22.
According to police, a preliminary investigation showed that the vehicle with the younger driver crossed over into the opposite lane and struck the vehicle with the two older men. The younger driver was ticketed for failing to keep right. The investigation is ongoing to see if additional charges will be filed.
Police said that there is no indication impairment of either driver in the crash.
The road was reopened a few hours later after an investigation by the Albany County Crash Reconstruction Team and Bethlehem police.
Albany County Sheriff’s Office, State Police and State DOT assisted with the crash.
The Road
Concern about Route 85 is not a new phenomenon for Bethlehem residents. While the DOT points out that, statistically, the road is relatively safe based on the last three years of crash data, people who live here remember the horrific number of fatal crashes.
There have been six fatal head-on crashes between Blessing Road and the Albany City line since 1982, and five of them have been linked to drug or alcohol impairment.
A crash on Route 85 on Saturday, Nov. 22.
In 1982, a crash on the Albany side of the Thruway bridge claimed the life of 20-year-old Michele Martin of Glenmont. She was killed when a driver with a record of five DWI and speeding arrests swerved into the wrong lane of traffic and struck her car head-on.
The driver in that case became the first person convicted of manslaughter for driving drunk.
About 200 yards west of that scene was an August 1987 crash that caused the death of Kathleen Quinn. The 15-year-old, who would have entered 11th grade at Bethlehem Central High School, was riding in the back seat of her parent’s station wagon when the car was hit by an impaired driver. Her mother was severely injured but survived.
The driver, Deborah A. Moquin of Albany, had two prior alcohol-related convictions within five years of being charged in this incident.
Moquin reportedly passed another westbound vehicle before the merge but failed to return to the westbound lane as the Quinn car approached from the opposite direction. This was near the point where the road transitions from four lanes to two lanes over the Thruway bridge, the same area where the two most recent fatal crashes occurred.
A head-on crash on Route 85 near Blessing Road on Saturday, Nov. 22, injured three people.
On May 11, 2023, 17-year-old Michael Kleinke Jr. died after his car was hit by a Mercedes driven by Thomas McGrath of Slingerlands. The accident occurred about 200 feet west of the Thruway bridge.
McGrath crossed the center line and collided head-on with Kleinke’s vehicle, according to accident reports. McGrath was charged with manslaughter, assault, aggravated vehicular homicide, and driving while impaired by the combined influence of drugs—all felonies.
Fifty-one weeks later, on Wednesday morning, May 1, 2024, Selkirk resident Shawna Marzahl died when her SUV was hit by a Subaru WRX driven by Matthew Monthie of Clifton Park, who was speeding at over 100 mph.
Monthie was traveling west, crossed the center line, and crashed head-on into Marzahl. Monthie was charged with manslaughter, assault, aggravated vehicular homicide (all felonies), and three misdemeanors, including DWI and driving while impaired by the combined influence of drugs.
Both McGrath and Monthie have pled not guilty, and their cases are heading to trial in Albany County Court.
In February 1997, 25-year-old Charles Russo of Voorheesville was hit head-on by an impaired driver as he was on his way to work at the post office. He died the next day in the hospital. The driver, Christopher Mansfield of Saratoga Springs, had three prior DWI convictions within 10 years. This accident occurred near Blessing Road, about a mile from the Thruway bridge.
About 100 yards west of the Thruway bridge, a 91-year-old woman from Liverpool was hit head-on by a concrete truck on November 23, 2005.
The accident occurred as police were attending to a property damage incident on the eastbound side of the road. The cement truck partially pulled into the opposite lane to bypass the accident, and the woman, Jean Ann Raver, did not move over.
The truck rolled over the top of her car’s hood, trapping her. Raver was talking but remained trapped inside. She died a few weeks later from injuries sustained in the crash. Another vehicle also crashed into the front of the cement truck, but that driver survived.
Calls for DOT to review the road in 2024 were rejected by the agency.