Changes made to deadly Palm Springs intersection
Three months after CBS Local 2 and KESQ first aired a story on a deadly intersection in Palm Springs, the city took action.
More than 22 accidents and at least two deaths have happened at the intersection of Crossley Road and Dinah Shore since 2009 alone.
“If you can’t see what’s ahead of you and you’ve taken a turn and there’s a car that you didn’t see and all of a sudden it hits you,” explains 25-year-old Carolina De La Torre. “Now it’s not a blind intersection and you don’t have to worry about the car ramming into you.”
De La Torre spearheaded the change.org petition online after noticing how often accidents were occurring in the intersection.
“I work down the street and there would be accidents all the time and I just got tired of the city not doing anything about it,” she said.
The petition garnered 559 votes and caught the attention of city engineers.
“Those modifications were completed last week,” said assistant city manager and engineer Marcus Fuller. “We moved forward with those changes in response to some public concern about the intersection.”
Last week, the city modified the east and westbound traffic lights from a yield-on-green to a red light and green arrow, despite the fact the city says the traffic light was not the problem.
“When we reviewed those accidents, there wasn’t changes to the signal or intersection that would have been required to correct those prior accidents,” Fuller said. “Unfortunately, the majority of drivers choose to drive at excessive speed and the left turning cars would misjudge that speed.”
Nonetheless, De La Torre says she is glad to see the change.
“It’s kind of unfortunate that I had to start a petition in order for them to finally change it and make it safer, but I did and I got the signatures and the community was behind me and we finally got it done and it finally got changed,” De La Torre said.
According to Fuller, the retrofits for the modification on the traffic lights were less than $5,000, therefore there was no council action needed to approve them. The speed limit in the area is only 45 miles-per-hour.
