Accident-Heavy Intersections Getting More Police Attention

Following the discovery that East Lansing has the most accident-prone intersection in Ingham County, the East Lansing Police Department (ELPD) started a new “Traffic Safety Initiative” on February 22. The initiative is aimed at increasing police presence and police enforcement at accident-prone intersections in East Lansing in the hope of reducing crashes.

According to a press release from ELPD, “The Grand River/Hagadorn intersection [shown above] had the highest number of accidents in the entire county in 2013 and 2015.” Also in the top-twenty problem intersections for Ingham County are the Mt. Hope/Hagadorn intersection and the Coolidge/Lake Lansing Road intersection.

I asked ELPD’s Lieutenant Scott Wrigglesworth why he thinks the Grand River Avenue/Hagadorn Road intersection ranks number one for accidents in the county.

He noted that there are five lanes in each direction there and “there is a ton of traffic that goes through there every day.”

Additionally, “It’s a two-minute light, so people wait a long time, and the more you wait, the more impatient you get, the more likely you are to turn [illegally] right on red.” He said that the long light also makes people inclined to run the yellow light, or even a red light, so that they don’t have to wait for another cycle. That can also lead to accidents.

Wrigglesworth also noted that the long light means distracted driving is common at that intersection. Drivers “have two minutes to sit at that light,” and that means they often get on their cell phones and become distracted.

"It just makes sense to focus our enforcement efforts near the intersections where the most violations occur,” ELPD Chief Jeff Murphy said in the City’s release on the initiative. “Many of these violations lead to accidents. . . . The goal is to reduce the amount of traffic accidents over the long haul. We hope our efforts will prevent a tragedy from happening.”

Asked about the Initiative, Wrigglesworth told me that officers will be spending more time at accident-prone intersections in East Lansing. He said that doesn’t mean officers will spend entire shifts at those intersections, but will be there often enough to become noticeable to regular drivers in those areas.

Hopefully, he told me, this will lead people to follow the rules more at these intersections, and thus reduce the number of crashes. Wrigglesworth said that just letting people know about this Initiative often makes them take more care.