A 50-year-old Clinton woman died yesterday afternoon after her car drifted off East Austin Road near Kies Road in Bridgewater Township and struck a large tree. Michigan State Police say the woman was driving west on East Austin Road around 4:15 p.m. when she drove onto the shoulder, steered back onto the roadway, then left it again before hitting the tree.
Bystanders and emergency personnel pulled the woman from the car and attempted life-saving measures, but she was declared dead at the scene, according to MLive.com. Troopers from the Michigan State Police Brighton Post, which covers both Washtenaw and Livingston counties, were assisted at the scene by the Manchester Township Fire Department, Lenawee County ambulance crews, and the Washtenaw County Sheriff's Office. State police said alcohol or drugs were not a factor in the crash, though the reason the woman left the roadway remains unclear, and it is not known whether she suffered a medical emergency before the crash.
A Rural Roadway With a History of Serious Crashes
East Austin Road cuts through open farmland and tree lines in Bridgewater Township, a rural civil township covering 36.2 square miles in southwestern Washtenaw County with an estimated population of just 1,565 residents, according to Census Reporter data. The township sits near the Lenawee County line, close to Clinton, where the victim lived.
The stretch has seen serious crashes before. In February, troopers investigated a severe crash on East Austin Road near Schneider Road after a vehicle struck a 51-year-old pedestrian, with witnesses reporting the pedestrian had moved into the lane of travel before impact, according to a Michigan State Police Facebook post. Further back, in June 2019, a Saline woman died after her vehicle was struck on Austin Road, a case that later resulted in a Bridgewater Township driver being sentenced to jail for failing to stop at the scene, as reported by The Saline Post.
Lane Departures and Tree Strikes a Persistent Danger
Washtenaw County recorded 20 fatal traffic crashes and 44 total deaths across its road network in 2023, according to the Washtenaw Area Transportation Study. Lane departures contributed to 40 percent of those fatal crashes — eight of the 20 — a pattern often tied to off-road, fixed-object collisions on rural two-lane roads like East Austin Road.
Statewide, striking a tree accounts for roughly 48 percent of all driver fatalities involving roadside obstacles, according to a report from Northfield Neighbors Today. Across the seven-county Southeast Michigan region, 402 people were killed and 2,211 seriously injured in more than 129,000 reported crashes in 2024, per ThatCarHitMe.com, with regional traffic deaths rising even as overall crash volume dipped slightly.
Latest in a String of Fatal Single-Vehicle Crashes
Yesterday's crash echoes other recent fatal single-vehicle wrecks in rural Washtenaw County. In November 2024, a 50-year-old Manchester Township man died after being ejected during a rollover crash, with state troopers noting the driver was unbelted, Hoodline reported. And in June 2025, emergency crews responded to a single-vehicle semi-truck crash on Whitmore Lake Road in Ann Arbor Township where a body was found near the wreckage, an incident that similarly required a multi-agency response from county deputies and state police.
It remains unknown whether investigators will determine what caused the Clinton woman to leave the roadway, or whether road maintenance records near the Kies Road intersection show any clear-zone or shoulder hazards. Michigan State Police have not indicated when, or whether, further findings from the crash investigation will be released.
