A 19-year-old Payne woman died yesterday morning after her car pulled into the path of a semi truck at the intersection of U.S. 30 and State Route 49 in Tully Township, a rural crossing in western Van Wert County that has now claimed lives in three separate crashes since 2019. Kaci Rae Sentelik was pronounced dead at the scene shortly after the 9:04 a.m. collision, according to reporting on the crash.
Sentelik had been traveling south on State Route 49 and stopped at the stop sign before crossing U.S. 30, according to Mercer County Outlook. She then pulled into the path of a westbound semi driven by 24-year-old Gavin Brady Smith of Quincy, Michigan, and failed to see the oncoming traffic, the outlet reported. The semi struck her Toyota Corolla on the driver's side, Smith's truck was hauling livestock, some of which had to be moved from the roadway, forcing officials to close the westbound lane of U.S. 30 during the response.
State troopers noted that the 2006 Western Star 4900 semi tractor-trailer had the right-of-way while traveling westbound on U.S. 30, where traffic does not stop, while State Route 49 traffic is controlled by a marked stop sign, according to The Village Reporter. The Ohio State Highway Patrol is investigating the crash, with the agency's Van Wert Post serving as the primary law enforcement authority for major collisions across the county. The Van Wert Fire Department, Van Wert County Sheriff's Office, Van Wert County Coroner's Office, Ohio Department of Transportation, Convoy Fire Department, Hague Towing and Repair, and Gerten Deadstock all assisted at the scene, along with Harting Farms.
A Crossing With a Deadly Track Record
Yesterday's crash was not an isolated event at this intersection. On December 18, 2024, a strikingly similar wreck occurred at the same crossing when a southbound semi stopped at the stop sign, failed to yield, and pulled into the path of an oncoming westbound semi on U.S. 30, killing 64-year-old Indiana truck driver Blane Williamson, according to LimaOhio.com. Both crashes involved a southbound driver on State Route 49 pulling out into the path of westbound traffic on U.S. 30.
The intersection's history stretches back further. On Christmas Eve in 2019, two Lima residents were killed there when their passenger car slid past the stop sign on southbound State Route 49 and was struck by a westbound vehicle on U.S. 30, per the same outlet's earlier reporting. Three fatal collisions in under seven years point to a persistent hazard where a high-speed, non-stopping divided highway meets a stop-controlled rural route.
State Has a Fix Planned, But Not Until 2030
The Ohio Department of Transportation's District 1 office has already developed a $1.88 million safety project, identified as PID 119643, to convert the U.S. 30 and State Route 49 intersection into a Restricted Crossing U-Turn, or RCUT, configuration, according to the Ohio Department of Transportation. The design is meant to eliminate dangerous broadside, side-impact collisions like the ones that have repeatedly occurred here by restricting drivers from crossing directly through the highway's lanes. Construction on that project is not estimated to begin until 2030.
The planned overhaul is part of a broader corridor safety study in which ODOT identified 18 at-grade intersections along U.S. 30 in Van Wert County for modification or elimination, using overpasses, roundabouts, and RCUTs to reduce angle crashes along the high-speed commercial freight route, as reported by the Van Wert Independent. It remains an open question whether yesterday's fatality will prompt ODOT or local officials to move up the timeline for safety improvements at this specific crossing.
Failure to Yield a Statewide Concern
Ohio recorded 1,125 traffic fatalities in 2025, marking the state's fourth consecutive annual decline in traffic deaths since 2021 and a 3% drop from the year before, according to state transportation data. Even so, failure to yield the right-of-way remains among the top overall causes of fatal traffic collisions statewide, ranking behind only roadway departures, per Ohio State Highway Patrol statistics.
Young drivers in particular remain vulnerable on Ohio roads. Highway patrol data published in September 2025 showed that motorists aged 15 to 24 were involved in 154,363 traffic crashes statewide during 2023 and 2024, with young drivers found to be at fault in 66% of fatal youth-involved crashes. The dossier does not indicate whether Sentelik's driving history factored into investigators' assessment of yesterday's crash, and no further details about the cause beyond the failure to yield have been released.
