Bad accident claimed the life of an elderly man here

There's a busy intersection near here that has claimed the life of 4 or 5 people in the last 10-15 years.Every time someone is lost there they make small improvments to the corner but unless they put up traffic lights,they aren't going to fix it.A few years ago a motorcyclist dozed off for a second and ran through it and was struck side on,so they put in rumble strips.Before that a middle aged man was struck side on and lost his life so they put in a merge lane and flashing red lights over the stop sign.There were atleast 2 others struck side on before that.Yesterday a man who was about to turn 80 and still in good health was going to make a left turn and was struck side on by a 10 wheeler hauling potato's.We keep begging the government to put up traffic lights to stop the side on traffic to make it safe but they reply is always the same no matter which government is in power,it's NO.The traffic is at a 4 way intesection comming out of a certral busy village turning off onto a busy highway where the speedlimit is 55mph and most drivers are travelling over 60 when going trough it.It's just plain dangerous and needless tragity continues because of it.

That sucks, I can think of a few bad intersections on PEI from my travels over there, a couple of them involve the 13. Tons of traffic lights around c-town, not so many elsewhere, then that round about around summerside....

You hate to see that.

I once had a body shop on a corner where there were a lot of accidents. Every once in a while when I was working, I'd hear a long screech of tires squealing and sometimes there'd be a "thud" at the end.

It got so I had the police station's number on speed dial on my telephone, and when I'd call the police they'd simply say, "We'll be right there", as soon as I identified myself.

It was on the main hiway coming into town and also right there the speed limit dropped from 60 to 35. I told the police once if they ever wanted to have a field day, all they had to do was sit at my desk in the office with a radar gun, 'cause vehicles would still be going 60 past my shop.

Nothing has ever been done.

PennDOT is about the same. They 'upgraded' the junction of route 199 onto route 220 here spending $5 million 'to make it safer'. Sure helped, PennDOT did everything the people said not to do and now we've gone from 1 or 2 bad pile ups a year to 1 or 2 a month.

We used to have a really bad intersection just down the road from the farm. It was one highway coming around a blind corner with a 55 speed limit, and the intersecting road had one side that was much lower than the other side, due to the banking in the curve. I think there were atleast 4-5 fatalities every year, and almost an accident every week. Sometimes 3 or 4.

They put in a round-a-bout, which has made that intersection much safer. That said, people also like to use it as a slingshot and go past our house at 60-65 MPH, even though it's been dropped to 45 MPH. Still mich easier to get through it with a tractor and for that much I like it. Much better than lights, where people can still blow through them. In a roundabout, you have to slow down no matter what.

Donovan from Wisconsin

If you can't feel the rumble strips or see a flashing light above a stop light then you shouldn't be driving anyway.

With everything they supposedly know, they can still design a bad intersection. Just a couple years ago they opened up a brand new doozie of a cable stay bridge that carries US Rte 1 across the Penobscot. I'll spare you the story of how they let the old bridge go to rot.

When you made landfall on the western end of the old bridge, you came up to what was basically a T -- traffic coming off the bridge followed around a curve to the left, and a state road with a stop sign entered from the right. It was a simple two-lane bridge, but visibiity was good all around fro people turning or entering.

So the open up this new bridge which has a center barrier about 4 feet high and 8-10 feetwide. Well, they threw a curve into the landfall on teh western ends, and put in a lane for eastbound traffic to turn left onto the state road. Problem is that the left turn traffic can't see traffic coming at them over the bridge. They didn't kill anybody but ws just a week they had four accidents. Worst case was one of those 32-foot Class A motor home rigs towing the family car behind, made the left turn (slowly, of course) and couldn't and didn't see the little Miata coming over the bridge.

All the millions spent on the design and erection of that bridge, all of the ledge they blasted out for the new landfall and approach, and nobody paid any attention to the line of sight. Their fix was to put in a traffic light, smack at the end of their fancy new bridge. Pretty pathetic.

Maybe ,maybe not,you want his kids phone numbers and tell them that yourself?

Yup,that Penobscot bridge is really something.Another Cianbro screwup. Hoss

I just got back from my vacation in the UK a couple of weeks ago and few things I noticed over there were; few traffic lights, tons and tons of roundabouts, and weird traffic signs. Their signs can be pretty dumb, but teh roundabouts are a very good idea. One thing is they keep traffic moving so I think you get to where you're going faster. And, as Don pointed out, you have to slow down for them whether you want to do 80 or not.

Jake in CT, used to be NY

Ya but the people sure bit-ched about it because they are to stupid to figure out how to use it. and the sign is YEILD not STOP

We have a bad corner right on the NW of my property. there are about 3 to 4 accidents a year they did take a lot of dirt off the neighbors but that didn't do any good.
Funny story a few years back they spent millions to fix the light where 22 and 99W cross. they spent a year putting in all kinds of over passes and such. After all was done they found out that you couldn't turn north on to 99 if coming out of Dallas on a side street that entered 22 right at 99W. also if coming west on 22 you couldn't turn north onto 99W they fixed that but you have cross 99W to get there. Also the whole idea was to get rid of the stop light on 99W and 22 but they had to add a light south on 99W for the Dallas people who have to take a 2 mile detour to get north on to 99W Real dumb. I wonder how old the guy was who laid this all out. Still wet behind the ears I bet.
Walt
PS good thing he didn't put in a roundabout he would have forgot to make exit points.

Reading about roundabouts and also driving through them in Chattanooga TN and Blairsville GA recently takes me back to the 30's and 40's when roundabouts were everywhere. I lived near Akron Ohio where there were many. In the 50's some one decided they were traffic hazards and so almost over nite they disappeared for stop signs and lights etc. Now roundabouts or as they were called 60-70 years ago, traffic circles are the latest thing. Proves that nothing is new under the sun. Henry

Body shop on an accident prone corner? Location, location, location!

We just recently added some roundabouts in our county. I think it's a great idea. Power was out here for a couple of days. Intersections with traffic lights were fubar. Roundy - rounds were no problem. And it does force people to slow down. But in this conservative county, a lot of people are dead set against roundabouts.

Traffic lights don't fix a problem intersection. Sounds from the description to be a level crossing of the highway? A turn in the straight-aways leading up to the stops slows people down and wakes up the sleepers. Are the sight lines bad? Why are people that are stopped not seeing 18 wheelers on the road? Do they think its a 4 way stop by mistake?