Last week, the City of Durham released statistics showing that more than 10 traffic accidents occurred at each of three separate campus intersections in the year 2000.
The most hazardous campus intersection on the list is the junction of Campus Drive and Anderson Street, where 13 accidents occurred between January and December of last year, causing a total of $50,000 in property damage. Of the 215 city intersections studied, the Campus-Anderson corner was 56th most dangerous.
"There's nothing seriously wrong. It's not a bad intersection at all," said Joyce Manning, a city transportation technician. Still, she added, "For the amount of traffic that goes through, most people would think there should not be as many accidents as there are."
According to a 1999 report by the North Carolina Department of Transportation, 12,000 vehicles each day drive on Anderson Street between Erwin Road and Morehead Avenue--which includes the Campus Drive intersection.
Over the last 10 years, Manning said, the number of accidents at the Campus-Anderson intersection has remained relatively stable, despite the area's rising amount of traffic.
Of the 13 accidents at the Campus-Anderson intersection, five were "angle accidents"--for example, when "a person on Anderson has a green light and the person on Campus doesn't stop and gets blindsided," Manning said.
Three of the accidents were rear-end collisions, two were left-turn related, two were instances of drivers running off the road, and one involved a right turn. Two of the accidents resulted in charges of driving while impaired; these alcohol-related incidents occurred after 11 p.m., when the intersection's lights change to flashing yellows.
Both Manning and city transportation planner Tim Saunders noted that the majority of the intersection's accidents likely occur when people speed through yellow lights. "My observation of traffic in Durham is people love to run yellow lights, and that's a pretty risky situation," Saunders said. "It's a combination of people trying to beat yellow lights [and people] jumping the greens."
Other campus intersections with significant accident rates include Erwin Road and Morrene Road with 12 accidents, ranked 63rd in the city; Anderson and Duke University Road with 11 accidents, ranked 69th; Erwin and LaSalle Street, with nine accidents, ranked 98th; Anderson and Erwin with eight accidents, ranked 108th; and Broad Street and Markham Avenue with six accidents, ranked 156th.
Maj. Robert Dean of the Duke University Police Department stressed the importance of drivers keeping their eyes on the road and the traffic lights.
"There's a traffic light there. People just need to remember when they got their licenses and learned to identify road signs," Dean said, noting that he has counted four accidents at the Campus-Anderson intersection so far this year. "The responsibility is with the people who are driving. If they're going to continue to run [lights], we're going to continue to have those accidents."
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