Crashes snarl traffic during morning commute in Peru

For a couple of hours, Route 251 on the north side of Peru was a mess Thursday morning.

Just after 7:30 a van driven by 76-year-old John Olson of Peru collided with a semi driven by 48-year-old Neal Leffler of Oklahoma at the Route 251 overpass over Interstate 80. Both men claimed to have the green light and neither was ticketed or hurt.

As that crash was getting cleaned up, a semi hauling a concrete building had its trailer tip over while turning onto Route 251 from 38th Street just south of the first crash. The 23-year-old driver Andrew Garrett of Missouri denied going to fast and wasn’t ticketed. He also wasn’t hurt.