The first collision Aug. 3 involved a dump truck that struck a SUV in the intersection. The crash resulted in the death of an 11-year-old boy. In the second accident Aug. 20, a car ran the stop sign and struck a pickup truck. Six people were taken to area hospitals.
County Engineer Paul Huelskamp told commissioners after the collisions an employee in his office who handles safety reviews after accidents was reviewing the intersection following the first crash, but it was not done before the second occurred.
That review resulted in measures including pulling the stop sign closer to the pavement to get it more into the driver’s field of view, Huelskamp said Tuesday, Sept. 15.
In addition, the size of the stop sign was increased from a standard 30-inch across to 36-inches across; bright strips were placed on sign posts; and stop bars of white lines were placed across the pavement.
“All of these things are designed to alert the driver more that there is a stop sign there and they need to stop,” Huelskamp said.
“What was there before met code. These are things that we think we can do in the short term … to try to alert the driver more that ‘Hey, there is a stop sign here,’” he said. The changes cost around $500, he said.
The intersection also has stop ahead signs before each stop sign, as does every intersection in the county which has a stop sign.
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