Man dies in Thruway crash after car crosses median, hit by tractor-trailer

A driver died after his car crossed the median on Interstate 90 eastbound, hit a guardrail and was struck by a tractor-trailer early Monday morning in the town of Mentz, adding another deadly collision to a stretch of the Thruway that has already seen a similar crash with Syracuse victims.

New York State Police said the driver’s name had not been released in the initial report. Troopers said the crash remains under investigation. The wreck happened on the NYS Thruway in Cayuga County, just west of the Syracuse area corridor that many Onondaga County commuters and commercial drivers use every day.

The latest death echoes a fatal crash on August 7, 2025, in the town of Brutus, also in Cayuga County, when a tractor-trailer crossed the median and guiderail and struck a Honda. In that crash, the truck driver, Mark S. Shidler of Applecreek, Ohio, died at the scene. John S. Roosa, 24, of Syracuse, was flown to Upstate Hospital with serious injuries, and Ashley G. Fay, 22, of Syracuse, was taken by ambulance and later released.

That earlier collision backed up eastbound traffic for about three hours over a 5.1-mile stretch, showing how one median-crossing crash on the Thruway can quickly ripple far beyond the impact site. For families in Syracuse and across Onondaga County, the consequences are immediate: delayed travel, emergency response tied up on a major highway and the risk of a crash turning fatal in seconds.

The pattern raises persistent safety concerns on the corridor, where speed, traffic volume, heavy trucks and changing weather can all make recovery from a loss of control difficult. In both the Monday crash and the August 2025 wreck, a vehicle crossed the median before the collision with a larger truck. The close resemblance between the two incidents puts renewed attention on whether drivers, State Police and the New York State Thruway Authority can do more to reduce the risk of median incursions and truck-related deaths on this busy route.

For now, investigators are still working to determine what caused the latest crash in Mentz and whether any wider safety lessons need to be drawn from another deadly day on the Thruway.