Photo by GREG KAHN // Buy this photo
Scenes at the intersection of Sanibel Boulevard and U.S. 41, one of the most dangerous intersections in Lee County. Greg Kahn/Staff
The Daily News reviewed crash reports from 2006 through 2008 for 22 intersections south of Daniels Parkway, determining which had the most accidents and the highest crash rates compared with traffic volume.
Of about 1,400 crashes in the three-year period of the Daily News analysis, about half were rear-end collisions. Another 450 weren’t classified. Fewer than 300 were either side-swipes or angled collisions and 33 were head-on crashes.
BONITA SPRINGS —
Vivian Jones waved her hands back and forth, criss-crossing over her head, swooping down into a loud clap.
That was her impersonation of traffic at one of the most crash-prone intersections in south Lee County.
Jones lives, works, shops and takes her child to day care near the crossroads of Sanibel Boulevard and U.S. 41 in San Carlos Park.
She drives cautiously and remains alert on the streets she calls stressful.
“When you’re driving,” Jones said, “you can’t just drive for you. You have to drive for everyone else because everyone else is bang, bang, bang.”
Nearly 47,000 cars pass through this spot every day. With more than one crash every two weeks, these cross streets ranked fourth-highest in an analysis of south Lee County’s most dangerous intersections.
The Daily News reviewed crash reports from 2006 through 2008 for 22 intersections south of Daniels Parkway, determining which had the most accidents and the highest crash rates compared with traffic volume.
Traffic engineers and law enforcement officers use statistics such as these to highlight roadways in need of safety improvements or extra enforcement.
Officials interviewed for this story felt that the intersections in south Lee County were, overall, in pretty good shape.
“There’s no intersection on U.S. 41 that’s been raised to the (DOT) for issues of safety,” Florida Department of Transportation spokeswoman Debbie Tower said. “We see crashes at signalized intersections. That’s unfortunately not atypical. And we do see a lot of rear-end crashes. … We’re just not seeing anything out of the ordinary.”
Of about 1,400 crashes in the three-year period of the Daily News analysis, about half were rear-end collisions. Another 450 weren’t classified. Fewer than 300 were either side-swipes or angled collisions and 33 were head-on crashes.
“There’s no intersection on U.S. 41 that’s been raised to the (DOT) for issues of safety,” Florida Department of Transportation spokeswoman Debbie Tower said. “We see crashes at signalized intersections. That’s unfortunately not atypical. And we do see a lot of rear-end crashes. … We’re just not seeing anything out of the ordinary.”
A number of factors play into the safety equation: design flaws, congestion, traffic signals that allow for dangerous movements and distractions, such as driveways into businesses.
By far, the No. 1 cause of crashes is driver error, officials said.
Engineers attributed 90 percent of collisions to distractions such as following too closely or turning attention to text messages or kids in the back seat.
“You’re going to have crashes because we’re humans and humans make mistakes,” said Stephen Jansen, Lee County’s senior traffic engineer.
When those mistakes happen at an increasing rate, Jansen takes note to see if anything can be done to reduce drivers’ risks.
One such analysis took place a few years ago at the Sanibel and U.S. 41 intersection near where Jones works at Taco Viva.
The county traffic division noticed there had been 84 crashes in 2004 and 2005, 21 of which resulted in injuries.
“Turning off of (U.S.) 41 in each direction was a problem,” Jansen said.
Seventeen crashes happened when cars tried to turn left from U.S. 41 and collided with traffic moving straight through the intersection.
In 2006, that signal was changed to limit left turns to green arrows only. In the years that followed, left-turn injury crashes became practically nonexistent. From 2007 through 2009 there were 63 crashes, nearly half the annual rate from earlier years. Nine crashes in the three-year span resulted in injuries, two of which were left-turning vehicles colliding with through traffic.
(Monday, it will be your chance at naplesnews.com to Sound Off about traffic. Return to our website on Monday and take several polls about traffic in our area.)
Thursday: Collier’s most dangerous intersections
Today: South Lee’s most dangerous intersections
Weekend: Dangerous intersections, by community
Monday: Readers’ choices and several polls for you to Sound Off about Southwest Florida traffic
(Pick up copies of the Daily News this Sunday and Monday for newspaper versions of this series and a full-page map showing the most dangerous intersections)
The intersection still ranks high for crashes, however those typically don’t involve injuries. Most often, there are rear-end collisions that typify driver error.
“It doesn’t matter what you do to the road if the driver’s not paying attention,” Jansen said.
When Jansen’s crash-rate analysis shows less than one crash for every million vehicles, he considers it to be in good shape. Between one and two crashes per million are basically safe, but could possibly trigger a review. Anything more than two crashes per million vehicles is a red flag.
In the Daily News analysis, just two south Lee County intersections along U.S. 41 surpassed Jansen’s threshold: Old 41 Road had 2.15 crashes per million and Corkscrew Road saw 2.08 crashes per million vehicles.
Old 41 Road is a city of Bonita Springs road, but Daryl Walk, the city’s public works manager, said the city doesn’t have the engineering staff to analyze crash statistics. Crashes along there trended down, with 61 reported in 2006, 39 in 2007 and 25 in 2008.
Tower said she couldn’t be sure what the numbers were illustrating. In 2006, U.S. 41 was under construction from Old 41 Road south, but she declined to say whether that was a factor.
“I just can’t draw that conclusion,” she said.
However, Jansen said where there is construction there are distracted drivers. They turn their attention to construction work or become confused by barricades.
Rodgers Wilkinson, 56, manager of the Circle K on U.S. 41 near Old 41 Road, said traffic usually moves along at a good pace with few accidents.
“You do start to see (traffic) back up here,” Wilkinson said. “Usually it flows pretty good.”
Corkscrew Road at U.S. 41 carried the second-highest crash rate in the Daily News analysis and saw about 127 crashes in three years. Most of those were rear-end and side-swipes.
Jansen said those types of accidents were congestion-related. A fix for that is coming by early next year. The state plans to six-lane U.S. 41 from Corkscrew north to Hickory Drive.
Most top spots for crashes occur at higher-volume roads.
Six Mile Cypress Parkway at U.S. 41 carried about 88,000 vehicles each day.
Between one and two crashes per million are basically safe, but could possibly trigger a review. Anything more than two crashes per million vehicles is a red flag. In the Daily News analysis, just two south Lee County intersections along U.S. 41 surpassed the threshold: Old 41 Road had 2.15 crashes per million and Corkscrew Road saw 2.08 crashes per million vehicles.
Though its crash rate didn’t make the top five, that intersection saw 116 crashes from 2006-08, ranking fourth in total collisions.
Drivers can expect some relief there as well. A state project will double the capacity of the left-turn lanes in both directions on U.S. 41.
That’s where Brooke Wallis, 52, manager of the DQ Grill & Chill near the intersection, calls traffic “crazy.”
“This light backs up a lot and people are trying to squeeze into the turn lane for the beach,” Wallis said.
The two turn lanes already operating in both directions aren’t enough to keep cars from overflowing into lanes where traffic is continuing through the intersection.
“If you’re not prepared for it,” Wallis said, “you can bump into someone else.”
Once all of U.S. 41 is six lanes, it will likely not get wider, Tower said, so new north-south corridors become key to managing growth.
That’s why Metro Parkway will be extended to U.S. 41 in 2012.
Still, some see enforcement as the crux to safe streets.
“They can do anything to the roads, but the only thing that will change drivers is seeing more police on the roads,” said Marilyn Kidder, 61, a saleswoman for Carl’s Patio at the Alico Road and U.S. 41 intersection.
Lt. Jim Drzymala, traffic commander of the Lee County Sheriff’s Office, agreed.
“Once we determine the education and engineering won’t work, we’ll go out and focus some enforcement on (a section of road),” he said.
County engineering, enforcement and education officials meet monthly to discuss streets in need of attention.
“We don’t have any bad intersections,” Drzymala said. “We have high-volume intersections, but that’s just part of growing pains in Southwest Florida.”
While some growing pains can be alleviated by widening streets, some streets have had all of the fixing they will likely get.
?Dangerous intersections: Where you’re most likely to crash in Collier County
Bonita Beach Road carries an average of 67,000 cars each day and saw 139 crashes, or 1.9 crashes per million vehicles. But plans to widen it west of U.S. 41 are stalled with a lack of money, Jansen said.
“There’s never going to be enough money for all the needs,” added Harry Campbell, Lee’s traffic director. The intersection maintenance budget has been cut from about $1 million to $750,000.
To the extent possible, traffic signals can promote efficiency and safety.
Yellow lights can be lengthened to give drivers more time to pass through the intersection, as can the full cycle from green to red to handle peak-season or peak-hour volumes.
Law enforcement officers can be tipped off to red-light runners by special lights on signals that illuminate when a car has run a red light.
?Dangerous intersections: How we did our analysis in Collier, south Lee
?Dangerous intersections: Lee data
Sometimes those lights aren’t perfect, though, and the county can fix glitches when notified by the public.
Michael Condello, 31, of Naples who works at the Subway at the intersection of Corkscrew Road and U.S. 41, said his biggest traffic concern is sensors.
Sensors detect when a car is waiting for a green arrow. But that can be problematic for people riding motorcycles, which sometimes may not be detected by sensors.
“I have to wait for a car to come behind me for the light to turn,” Condello said. “Sometimes I just have to blow through it.”
Tower was adamant, however, that drivers shouldn’t consider traffic signals as tools for safe streets.
“Traffic signals are not safety devices,” she said. “They assign right of way.”
Sometimes if a driver is killed, family will ask for a traffic light at the crash location. But lights installed arbitrarily may cause more problems, Tower said.
“Safety is in the hands of drivers,” she said.
Sometimes residents see a problem where traffic officials don’t.
Several drivers interviewed for this story said turning at the Bonita Beach Road and Arroyal roads intersection is the most dangerous in south Lee County.
Athena Andrus, 25, who works at CVS near the U.S. 41 and Bonita Beach Road intersection, said the problem is turning left.
“When there are other cars in the turn lane (across from you) you can’t see oncoming traffic,” Andrus said. “People behind honk at you, but you can’t see and you can’t take that risk.”
Tami Gruver, 39, of Bonita Springs, was in an accident there.
“It totaled my car and I had neck injuries,” she said. “I get nervous going through there.”
The intersection allows cars to turn left on the green arrow and green ball.
With about 15 accidents a year and more than 30,000 cars traveling through the intersection each day, the Arroyal-Bonita Beach Road intersection sees about one crash per million drivers.
“In the grand scheme of things it’s not that bad,” Jansen said.
Maintaining traffic flow and safety is a balancing act.
“I can make these roads so safe nobody would die,” Jansen said. “But nobody wants to go 15 miles per hour.”
__ Connect with Tara E. McLaughlin at www.naplesnews.com/staff/tara-mclaughlin/
DANGEROUS INTERSECTIONS: The series so far
?Dangerous intersections:The series
?Dangerous intersections: A map of crash rates
?Dangerous intersections: A map of crash totals
?Dangerous intersections: Where you’re most likely to crash in Collier County
?Dangerous intersections: A closer look at five of Collier County’s worst
?Dangerous intersections: Collier data
?Dangerous intersections: U.S. 41 is accident central throughout south Lee
?Dangerous intersections: Lee data
?Dangerous intersections: How we did our analysis in Collier, south Lee
This series was reported by Ryan Mills, Tara McLaughlin and Tracy Miguel. Video by Carrie Wise. Database by Joseph Prehoda.
? 2010 Naples Daily News. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
