Topeka, KS : Two people, including a 16-year-old boy killed in head-on crash on Oakland Expressway on Monday morning, June 27, 2016

Two people — including a 16-year-old boy — were killed early Monday in a two-vehicle, head-on crash on the Oakland Expressway just northeast of Topeka, officials said at the scene.

The driver of each truck was pronounced dead at the scene, authorities said. The drivers were alone in their vehicles.

The crash occurred about 6:15 a.m. and involved two pickup trucks that collided head-on near the north end of the Oakland Expressway on K-4 highway, about a half-mile south of the US-24 highway interchange.

The crash occurred at a point where the expressway curved slightly.

Lt. Adam Winters, of the Kansas Highway Patrol, said a red 2001 Dodge pickup truck traveling north on K-4 crossed the center line “for an unknown reason” and crashed head-on into a maroon 2002 GMC pickup truck southbound on the road.

The driver of the Dodge truck was identified as Daniel Jordan Warner, 16, of Topeka. The patrol said he wasn’t wearing a seat belt.

The driver of the GMC truck was identifed as Thad H. Hess, 40, of Rossville. The patrol said Hess was wearing a seat belt.

Winters said investigators were looking into whether fog that blanketed the area may have contributed to the crash.

K-4 highway, which travels over the Oakland Expressway, was closed for several hours between N.E. Seward Avenue and US-24 highway after the crash.

Crews from the Kansas Highway Patrol, the Shawnee County Sheriff’s Office, KDOT and the Soldier Township Fire Department responded to the scene.

The Oakland Expressway uses both a surface road and a long bridge to take motorists on K-4 from Interstate 70 on the south about 5 miles to US-24 on the north.

The two-lane expressway has been the site of other fatal crashes, including one on July 14, 2015, in which a 50-year-old Topeka woman was killed.

Other fatality crashes were reported in March 2012, May 2008, December 2004 and September 2003.

Source :
KHP identifies 2 drivers killed Monday morning in head-on crash on Oakland Expressway