W. Michigan's 9 worst spots for crashes

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) - Nine roads and intersections in West Michigan rank among the state's 40 worst spots for crashes, according to a Michigan Department of Transportation report submitted this year to the Federal Highway Administration.

The required state report is called the "5%" or "transparency" report and while not well known, it is public. Target 8 obtained a copy of the 2011 report, which the FHWA has not yet posted online.

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Read the 2011 Transparency Report here (pdf)

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Four of the West Michigan spots on what it sometimes called the high-crash list are along freeways.

But first, a look at the other five locations:

• An intersection along Chicago Drive in Ottawa County,
• A section of 44th Street in Ottawa County,
• A stretch of Sprinkle Road in Kalamazoo County,
• Part of Sheridan Drive in Muskegon County
• Fruit Ridge Avenue near 7 Mile Road in Kent County.

That stretch of Fruit Ridge was on the state's list in 2009 and 2010. And it remains on the 2011 list because, like other road spans on it, Fruit Ridge near 7 Mile has a high rate of crashes per mile.

Two people died in crashes along the stretch between 2006 and 2010. Four people were seriously hurt in crashes there.

Harold Pimpleton lives in the crash zone. He said he's been hit twice while driving his car along the road. And Pimpleton has seen plenty of other crashes.

"A guy hit a lady from the back," he recalled. "He was going over 100 miles an hour -- split her SUV in half."

The 20-plus-year resident of Fruit Ridge Avenue wants to see more speed traps.

The Kent County Road Commission is planning other fixes. Leaders there say the road itself is not a major problem, but there is a crash history.

"We found a lot of the crashes were run off the road, hitting fixed objects -- trees mostly -- and a significant number of them occurred when it was wet or snowy," said Tim Haagsma, traffic and safety director for the commission.

The first fix? KCRC won federal money to take out trees.

And because of the wet crash pattern, "we're going to do a surface treatment where we would incrase the friction factor so the road is a little more aggressive -- less slippery when wet," Haagsma said.

The plan is to put the fix into place next summer. The report lists the estimated price tag at $95,000.

Other roads on the list were fixed this summer.

The Michigan Department of Transportation installed a so-called "Michigan left" at 72nd Avenue and Chicago Drive after five serious injuries and one death there over the last three years. Drivers were running red lights trying to get across the road, an MDOT spokesman said.

Now, drivers cannot travel straight across Chicago on 72nd. The state report estimated the fixes at $600,000.

"Just by doing that move alone reduces the severity and the frequency of crashes by about 60%," said John Richard, MDOT's Grand Region communications representative.

72nd and Chicago is the only West Michigan intersection on the list. The rest are stretches of road. Intersections are added to the list based on the number of serious crashes, serious injuries and deaths.

It is possible that more West Michigan intersections are not on the list because there are more cars on the road in southeast Michigan -- and there's not a simple way to factor that in.

Elsewhere in Ottawa County, the road commission spent an estimated $500 to install signs along 44th Street east of 8th Avenue warning drivers of a curve ahead. Six people were hurt in crashes there between 2006 and 2010.

To the south, the Kalmazoo County Road Commission is expected to consider grant funding to add rumble strips to prevent drivers from leaving the road or corssing the center line -- and perhaps even change the banking of the road. Six people have been seriously hurt in crashes there over the last five years.

But traffic engineers told Target 8 there is not a fix for every road on the list.

Take the stretch of Sheridan Drive in Muskegon County, between Vine and Evanston avenues. It's on the list for the second year in a row.

Asked if there's anything he believes could be done to significantly cut down on crashes, Muskegon County Road Commission highway engineer Paul Bouman said that given the type of crash seen along the road, the incidents are "more related to driver behavior."

Bouman said he believes the segment of Sheridan is on the list in part because there's a busy four-way-stop intersection in the middle of it.

Leon Terpenning can tell you about the crashes at his corner along Sheridan.

"One day, I had pulled up here to turn in my driveway," he recalled, and a large truck nearly struck him from the back end. "And he took my mailbox out."

Terpenning figures he has lost his mailbox roughly 10 times during the decades he has lived at his Muskegon Township home.

He sees plenty of "fender-benders," but the state's report lists eight serious injuries along the stretch between 2006 and 2010.

"I wish