A message from Commander Paul J. Liquorie, Montgomery County Department of Police, 2nd District:

The deaths of two young men killed as a result of the collision that occurred on March 23, 2018 on Oaklyn Drive is clearly a tragic event. The police department's Collision Reconstruction Unit continues to investigate the circumstances surrounding the collision. However, the unit's final report will take time to complete as detectives compile all of the data and methodically calculate all of the factors that contributed to this incident.

In light of this event, many community members have inquired about speeding and the number of collisions that have occurred along Oaklyn Drive and the greater Avenel community. Officers from the police department's 2nd District regularly conduct speed and other traffic enforcement along Oaklyn Drive and the intersecting roads. In addition to conducting proactive enforcement over the last week, the traffic squad installed two electronic speed monitoring and display signs; one southbound on Oaklyn Drive at Rock Run and the other northbound at Oaklyn Drive at Oaklyn Court. The average speeds respectively were 36 MPH and 32 MPH. The speed limit on Oaklyn Drive is 35 MPH.

Since 2013, the police department has captured the speed data from monitoring devices, and traffic citations utilizing RADAR and LIDAR. In this five year period, 18,360 vehicles have been monitored and the average speed has been determined to be 36.5 MPH. In this same timeframe, there have been 18 collisions on Oaklyn Drive and three additional ones on side streets in proximity to Oaklyn Drive. That averages to four collisions a year, with many of them being single vehicle collisions. While there is the occasional deer noted, the most widely cited cause for these collisions was "failure to give full time and attention" or, more simply, distracted driving. 

The police department is committed to the public's safety and the county's "Vision Zero" efforts and does its best to utilize the limited resources it has to proactively enforce traffic regulations and provide a deterrent presence to reduce violations. The police will continue to work with its partners in the county's Department of Transportation and the State Highway Administration to identify areas of concern and examine possible engineering or technical solutions to help reduce traffic collisions and make our roads safer.

If you have any further questions or concerns, please feel free to contact me via email at [email protected].