Albemarle teen dies in crash
The Daily Progress/Matthew Rosenberg
Sydney Aichs is remembered on the Free Speech Wall on the Downtown Mall. Aichs, 16, an Albemarle High School junior, was killed Friday morning after her car was hit by a tractor-trailer on U.S. 29 in Albemarle.
Pictures of a smiling 16-year-old Sydney Aichs started making their way around Facebook on Friday as friends began new groups in her memory on the social networking site. By the evening, more than 700 people had joined the group, leaving messages of love and sorrow hours after she died in an auto accident on U.S. 29.
“I’m going to miss how hyper you always were, and how great of a left foot you had, and how we’d write each other [love letters] during school and give them to each other at soccer [practices],” wrote a friend.
“I reached that intersection literally three minutes after you did,” wrote one acquaintance. “I’m thinking of you, your friends and your family.”
“I guess the world seems split in two today, and wherever you are, everyone who loves you is there too,” wrote another.
At 7:08 a.m. Friday, the Albemarle High School junior was preparing to make a left turn from Ashwood Boulevard onto southbound U.S. 29, police said. A short time later, emergency crews responded to the intersection to find that a tractor-trailer had plowed into her black 1999 Chevrolet Cavalier. Authorities pronounced Aichs dead at the scene.
Police closed the road for more than three hours to clear the wreckage and investigate the accident. Authorities said their initial investigation showed that the northbound tractor-trailer, driven by 54-year-old Waynesboro resident Kenneth Barbour, failed to stop for a red light and hit Aichs’ driver’s side door. Both Barbour and Aichs were wearing their seat belts, police said.
Albemarle police Lt. Todd Hopwood said Barbour was driving for Don B. Swisher Trucking Corp. He wasn’t injured in the accident. The police spokesman said investigators would present the results of their investigation to the county’s commonwealth’s attorney, who will determine if Barbour should be charged in the crash.
“It’s still going to remain an ongoing investigation for a while as the accident reconstruction team does its work,” Hopwood said.
While police are piecing together what happened at U.S. 29 and Ashwood, Aichs’ classmates are trying to come to terms with the loss of a good friend. A candle lighting was planned in Aichs’ honor for Friday night at a soccer field and advertised on Facebook. Her friends created a few T-shirt designs that friends and supporters could buy to remember her, with proceeds going to her family.
Albemarle school officials expressed sympathy and sadness for the Aichs’ family.
“We are facing a great tragedy in our school system this morning and our thoughts and prayers are with Ms. Aichs’ family and friends and the entire Albemarle High School community,” said Superintendent Pam Moran, in a prepared statement.
School officials said they are making counseling services available to students, faculty and staff at the high school.
Whether or not they knew her, students who wrote messages on Aichs’ Facebook groups said the high school had a different mood after they found out she had died.
“Today was the quietest day I’ve ever seen in that school, but also the loudest,” one person wrote. “Rest in peace, Sydney. You are missed.”
Daily Progress staff writer Bryan McKenzie contributed to this story.
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Reader Reactions
In the meantime, while waiting forever for VDOT to get a clue, understand that lights only SIGNAL drivers to stop. Seasoned drivers still look both ways before entering an intersection. Have a discussion with your children and remind them often to do that.
I think this is a good time for the Charlottesville/Albemarle community to get together and go after VDOT over this intersection…how many more lives have to be lost or families destroyed at this FL South intersection for something to change??? DO IT NOW!!!
All the intersections through that stretch of 29 are very dangerous. I don’t know if it’s feasible to flatten the hills through there so you can actually see the light before you pop over the hill. I know, slow down also!
I live directly across the street from the Aichs, and the mood of the neighborhood, as you might imagine, is pretty somber. Having lived in Charlottesville for the last 3 1/2 years, I am amazed at the number of accidents that have occured at three different intersections, all involving Route 29…Ashwood Boulevard, Rio Road, and Hydraulic Road. In many (not all) cases, it is because people seem to think running a red light is OK. IT IS NOT! When the light turns yellow, you slow down and stop! Next time, you go! GOT IT???
There are flashing yellow lights in both directions with big yellow signs saying stop light ahead and slow down to 35mph. Here’s a thought for commuters going back and forth in that direction everyday: do that.
When we lived in Forest Lakes South, there wasn’t initially a stop light there. My brother was hit in his car and then the light got put up. But everyone still plows through as if there wasn’t a light there, over a decade later. It’s horrible. It makes my heart ache for Sydney and her family and friends. I really hope whatever department of transportation takes this into greater account when examaning that intersection which has been proven twice to me personally as dangerous.
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