ZELIENOPLE — Residents and police said the location of Monday's fatal accident on Route 68 that killed a young pregnant woman has a deceptive curve and a history of accidents, including at least two fatalities in the past decade.

Police Chief Jim Miller said Tuesday the state Department of Transportation is about to begin a project to rebuild the curve to reduce the number of crashes there.

“It has an odd weird angle right there where this happened,” Miller said. “It can get dangerous when the road gets a little wet or icy.”

“It was an awful accident (Monday), just horrible,” said Don Pepe, Zelienople borough manager, who said there's been two or three fatal accidents and a couple serious other ones.

“That's the area that PennDOT is going to take the curve out. The contractor showed up that afternoon to put the (road construction) signs up,” he said.

PennDOT will begin the project June 24 in that area to replace Muntz Run Bridge near Route 68's intersection with Ben Venue Road and straighten out the curve.

Donegal Construction Corp. will replace the bridge, which carries Route 68 over the creek in Zelienople, for about $942,000.

The entire project will cost about $2 million, according to figures from the Southwest Planning Commission.

Construction signs went up on Route 68 a day after the fatal accident.

PennDOT officials were unable to be reached for comment.

“There have been quite a few accidents there,” said D.J. DeMarco, who lives several houses up from the accident scene on Route 68.

DeMarco said because of the truck traffic on that section of road, his aunt who has the closest home to the accident site, has a hard time getting out of her driveway because of the road's curve and the sight distance.

Eugene Rader, who lives just up from the accident site on West Beaver Street, which is Route 68, also said there have been many accidents there over the years.

“They (PennDOT) have been talking about a pretty new bridge on and off again for the past 30 years. Looks like they're finally getting around to doing it before somebody else gets killed,” said Rader.

“Another person died there (in the past). The problem is they have the turn banked the wrong way. Trucks don't know how bad that curve is and try to speed through it,” said Zelienople resident Fred Haushalter, who was working Tuesday morning at Will's Sport Shop. He lives next to the shop.

The fatal collision that Haushalter recalled happened Feb. 13, 2001, on a bend along Route 68 in Zelienople near the Beaver County line.

According to police, Larry Bennett of Mercer was speeding when his tractor trailer truck full of scrap aluminum rolled onto the road about 6:45 a.m.

At the same time, Kathleen Douglas, 40, of North Sewickley Township was on her way to work. She drove into the wreckage and died instantly.

Douglas was the former secretary for the Concord United Methodist Church in North Sewickley and a nurse at the Passavant Retirement Community in Zelienople.

Bennett had pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor charge of homicide by vehicle and careless driving in that crash. He was sentenced to 27 months in an intensive out-of-jail punishment program for causing the collision.

The accident on Monday killed the woman, who was three months pregnant, and critically injured her fiance when their car collided with a tractor-trailer.

Killed on Route 68 at Ben Venue Road was 19-year-old Alyssa McKee of Baden, Beaver County, a student at Clarion University.

Police said McKee was driving east about 1:40 p.m. when her Chevrolet Monte Carlo and a westbound tractor-trailer collided.

The tractor-trailer driven by Ronald Gross, 55, of Boyertown, Berks County, traveled another 40 yards after the collision and stopped in the middle of the road.

Her fiance, Kevin Snyder, 21, of New Brighton, Beaver County, suffered severe injuries, police said. Gross was not injured.

Snyder still is in critical condition at Allegheny General Hospital. Weather might have been a factor, said police.

Two years ago a motorcyclist was killed less than a quarter mile west of Monday's crash.

On March 12, 2011, David Ries, 53, of New Sewickley died at the scene of the 8:40 p.m. accident.

Ries had apparently lost control of his motorcycle while westbound on Route 68 about one-quarter mile east of Zeigler Road. He traveling on one curve and going into another when his bike went off the shoulder and crashed.