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Sunday, Nov. 08, 2009

Most traffic fatalities this year involve pedestrian deaths

For the most part, the locations where 134 people have died on Macon and Bibb County roads since 2005 are as scattered as the pellets of a shotgun blast.

A Telegraph analysis of Macon police and Bibb County sheriff’s records shows that just a handful of intersections have seen more destruction than others. Only seven locations have been the scene of multiple fatal accidents since 2005.

The location where the most fatalities have happened is the area of Interstate 75 near Hartley Bridge Road, where five people have died in five accidents. But with road construction near the interchange nearing completion, no one has died there in 2009.

So far this year, eight of the 15 people killed by cars have been pedestrians, including a sanitation employee, a jogger and people simply crossing the street. The latest such episode happened Oct. 21, when a 26-year-old man was struck and killed on Hawaiian Village Drive.

On Anthony Road, marks made with orange spray paint are still visible where 16-year-old Kiara Crafter was struck while crossing near Lincoln Street on Oct. 10.

“If I can avoid it, I avoid it,” said Angela Crafter, the girl’s mother. “I don’t want to see it.”

The teenager, who had dreams of becoming a model, was on her way home with a friend when she stepped onto Anthony Road, Crafter said.

She said her daughter was talking on a cell phone and stopped in the road when she saw a car coming. But the driver crossed into another lane and struck her, Crafter said.

She said she’s trying to wait patiently as the police investigate her daughter’s death.

“I know she didn’t walk in front of that car,” she said.

While authorities say lighting is an issue at some of the intersections where pedestrians have been struck and killed, they also cite alcohol and people not paying attention to their surroundings as significant contributing factors. None of the eight pedestrians killed so far this year was in a crosswalk.

“A car can come up so quickly,” said Bibb County Chief Deputy David Davis.

Distractions — from listening to music or even being deep in thought — can be dangerous, he said.

Davis said the average reaction time for a driver is between three-fourths of a second and a second. In that time, a car driving 50 mph travels about 50 feet before the driver even puts a foot on the brakes.

For some pedestrians, there’s also a risk in simple routines.

A sanitation worker died in January, for example, after jumping off the back of a sanitation truck in the 6900 block of Moseley Dixon Road.

Doing the job he did every day, he stepped into the path of a car, which struck and killed him, Davis said.

ROAD CONSTRUCTION CAN CONTRIBUTE

Macon police officer Austin Riley said officers are talking with the city’s traffic engineering department to determine whether a street light is needed at the intersection of Emery Highway and East Short Street, where two pedestrians have been killed in the past 13 months.

In many cases, pedestrians aren’t walking toward traffic so they can see cars coming — and motorists can see them, he said.

The majority of the people who’ve been struck by cars were wearing dark colors — blues, blacks or browns, Riley said. Pedestrians should wear bright-colored clothing.

While crosswalks aren’t always the fastest ways to cross a street, Riley said pedestrians should use them as much as possible.

“That’s what they’re put there for,” he said.

Road construction also can create a challenging route for drivers and contribute to traffic accidents.

Of the five people killed in the area of the Interstate 75 interchange with Hartley Bridge Road since 2005, one driver lost control of her car while talking on a cell phone about a half-mile south of the exit. Another driver approached the entrance ramp too fast and lost control of his car in a curve.

Three of the deaths involved pedestrians.

In 2005, a man was killed while standing beside his truck. Another man was killed in 2006 when his car was struck by a tractor-trailer while he was parked in a ditch off the exit ramp to fix a flat tire.

In 2008, a construction worker was struck and killed while working behind a construction barrier.

Two of the deaths were related to drugs or alcohol, according to the sheriff’s records.

Davis said he couldn’t think of common links with the stretch of Interstate 475 near Eisenhower Parkway, where four people have died in the past five years.

“Each one had an independent cause,” he said.

A man crashed on his motorcycle in 2005. Two women lost control of their cars in 2006. That same year, a drunken driver struck a sport utility vehicle from behind, causing the vehicle to overturn. A woman was ejected and killed.

Riley said the three wrecks near the intersection of Forsyth and Tucker roads didn’t all happen at the intersection, and each one had a different cause.

One of the crashes was caused by a medical emergency. In another case, the driver was under the influence of alcohol. In the third, a 93-year-old woman pulled out of a parking lot in front of a car, he said.

Davis said deputies study each accident, looking for trends in hopes that they can do something to reduce the number of crashes through remedies such as increased patrols or a new stop sign.

Riley said Macon police officers draft a list of the top 10 intersections ranked by the number of crashes each year. Using the list, they also analyze trends in crashes.

Of the wrecks in 2009, just one has happened at one of the city’s top 10 intersections.

Riley said weather probably played a factor in the March 16 death of a 33-year-old Jones County man who was thrown from a wrecker when its driver lost control.

In general, Davis and Riley said the spots where people are dying in car crashes are fairly coincidental.

“It’s not so much that we have dangerous intersections but dangerous conditions that present themselves through drivers,” Davis said.

Alcohol, speed and unfamiliarity with a road can make any intersection deadly, he said.

“It’s a recipe for disaster.”

Information from The Telegraph’s archives was used in this report. To contact writer Amy Leigh Womack, call 744-4398.