Three people were taken to the hospital for non-life threatening injuries after a car crash at 6:40 p.m. Thursday on Egan Drive near Fred Meyer.
Police said the crash was caused by a driver who failed to yield while making a left turn from Egan Drive inbound onto Glacier Highway, according to a news release from Sgt. Dominic Branson.
The driver of a 1992 Honda, whom police identified as Archie Lee, 53, turned in front of a 1995 Mazda driven by a 38-year-old Juneau resident.
Both drivers, and the fire department says a third person, were taken to Bartlett Regional Hospital. Lee was cited for failing to yield.
The accident closed Egan Drive outbound for about 30 minutes.
Comments (4)
Add commentHere we go again
"Police said the crash was caused by a driver who failed to yield while making a left turn from Egan"
How many people are going to have to be maimed and killed at this crossing before DOT addresses it with a proper intersection?
Expecting the high number of drivers that turn left across the two lanes of oncoming high-speed traffic at that intersection, to do so 100% flawlessly day after day, is a fantasy. People make mistakes, they get distracted, they're old, they forget their glasses, their windshield wipers stop working, they're on prescription drugs (or otherwise), they're texting, they're reckless...who knows?
But the next car they pull out in front of might be yours.
They are probably waiting for
They are probably waiting for a certain number of "loss of life" or for someone of "importance" to get hit before they will even consider fixing that turn off. They should put another over/under pass there, but like I said, they are waiting...
Wake up
At least every two months we are talking about this again in connection with another accident. Stop the injuries and do something about this intersection. Since I was a kid I can recall Egan being closed for sometimes hours to handle accidents. We could have had this fixed with if workers were fixing the problem instead of emergency personnel working to save life's at that spot!
Roundabout, roundabout, roundabout
ALL of the intersections on Egan should have been roundabouts when it was built.
A roundabout would slow down traffic to a reasonable speed without creating the big schools of cars leaving a light. It would allow crossing from the airport to Fred's (and vice versa) without driving an extra mile down to the crowded McNugget light and back. It would take a lot of inbound traffic off Old Glacier Highway and reduce intersection conflicts and wait times at the Walmart monstrosity.
And they wasted money last summer "improving" this intersection, even though improved sight distance has not improved driver judgment. DOT would rather wait and build another Walmart type monster (what a waste of $30 million when a roundabout would have worked).
If you think this is bad, wait until someone turns in front of DOT's new monster 2-lane towplow next winter.