This undated selfie provided by her family shows Leslie Gingrich, who died in a motorcycle crash on Route 895 near Auburn, Pa, in Schuylkill County, on June 4, 2022. Pennsylvania’s transportation agency dug a ditch and didn’t tell anyone, and it cost a motorcyclist her life, the victim’s family says in a new civil lawsuit. Gingrich, a mother of three who was training to get her commercial driver’s license, was riding her Harley to class along a narrow, twisty state highway when she hit a ditch that had been left by a PennDOT crew weeks earlier. She had no warning and no chance to avoid it, her family says. (Leslie Gingrich via AP)

By MICHAEL RUBINKAM Associated Press
The family of a woman who died in a motorcycle crash is suing the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, saying the agency’s negligence caused the fatal wreck. Leslie Gingrich was riding her Harley in Schuylkill County on June 4 when she hit a ditch spanning both lanes of a narrow, twisty road. A wrongful death lawsuit says PennDOT created the hazardous condition while working on the road, then failed to place signage warning approaching motorists of the danger. The woman’s family says residents complained to PennDOT but their complaints about the road were ignored. The family is seeking unspecified money damages.