Topic Title Is Highway 50 really this bad?

Date Posted: 11/21/2004 11:26 AM Posted By: Nugget "The 45-mile stretch of Colonial, which weaves together more of the fabric of Central Florida life than any other road, also is the deadliest road in Central Florida -- and the 12th-deadliest in the United States, an Orlando Sentinel analysis found." http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/orange/orl-asecdeadly21112104nov21,1,3276898.story?coll=orl-home-promo Colonial one of nation's most dangerous roads By Scott Powers Sentinel Staff Writer November 21, 2004 Lillian Bevivino was driving home early from her job at Wal-Mart so she could get her sick dog to the veterinarian. She loved animals and was always taking in hungry strays. Tracee Badgett was headed to Best Buy with her 2-year-old son and a friend. Driving her Acura 3.2 TL, the 21-year-old was planning to use her tax-refund check to buy a DVD player. Cathy Sproule was going home after a late-night waitressing shift. She was a year from graduating with a UCF nursing degree. The trips were the mundane stuff of life. But for Bevivino, Badgett and Sproule, those trips ended in death. They all perished on Colonial Drive. The 45-mile stretch of Colonial, which weaves together more of the fabric of Central Florida life than any other road, also is the deadliest road in Central Florida -- and the 12th-deadliest in the United States, an Orlando Sentinel analysis found. In the past six years, 144 people have died on Colonial in Orange County, with three of those killed in two crashes just three days ago. The youngest victim was 2; the oldest, 91. "East Colonial Drive right now, it is a death trap," said Dennis Badgett, whose estranged wife, Tracee, died in a crash along with four other people. Year after year, Colonial, also known as State Road 50, ranks among the nation's deadliest roads, according to a Sentinel analysis of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's Fatality Analysis Reporting System databases. Within Orange County, more people died on Colonial than on Interstate 4, Florida's Turnpike and S.R. 417 combined. Main Street, Orlando Built more than a half-century ago, Colonial is Orlando's Main Street. Strip malls, fast-food restaurants and other businesses ranging from scrap-metal dealers to jewelry stores dot the road. The cross-state highway was never intended to be a major east-west commuter artery through Orange County, but now it carries up to 58,000 cars and trucks each day, many at high speeds. Combine that traffic with the more than 1,000 driveways, parking lots and side streets that pour cars and pedestrians into and across the road, and the results are often tragic. The road is most dangerous for pedestrians and for motorists trying to turn left or cross the road. A Sentinel examination of police records from 70 fatal crashes since the start of 2001 found 37 percent killed pedestrians. An additional 31 percent were caused when drivers tried to cross traffic or turn left but misjudged the opening. Ella Robbins, 91, had dinner out with her grandson, Jerry Heflin, who was visiting from California in 2001. But while driving her home, Heflin made a fatal error: He misjudged the gap in traffic while trying to turn left onto Econlockhatchee Trail. A Honda plowed into them, killing Robbins. Luis M. Molina made the same mistake, and it cost his son's life. Molina was taking 2-year-old Luis R. Molina to the baby sitter's one morning in 2002, but while he was trying to turn left onto Cricket Club Circle, a Honda hit them. "There is nothing worse than losing a son," the distraught father told the Sentinel the day Luis died. "It's like having your soul literally ripped from your body." Tragedy struck again Thursday, when two accidents just hours apart killed three people. Bevivino, 58, was heading east toward her Christmas home when Autumn Stanley, driving west, lost control of her 2000 Mitsubishi Eclipse and shot across the median. Bevivino's '86 Chevrolet Caprice slammed into Stanley's Eclipse. Both women were killed. Within an hour, nearly a dozen family and friends of Stanley, 18, arrived at the scene, collapsing into one another's arms and weeping. Just a couple of hours later and four miles to the east, another life was claimed. Travis E. Pilgrim, 19, driving west, tried to pass a tractor-trailer but lost control of his '92 Honda Accord and crossed the median. "I couldn't brake in time," said Mark Pulisay, 24, who was going east. "It was just a few feet. He went right into my headlights." Pulisay's 2003 Subaru Impreza slammed broadside into the Honda, killing Pilgrim."The volume is so much and the speed so fast that people don't have time to perceive and react," said Sgt. Ron Behnke, head of the traffic-homicide squad for the Florida Highway Patrol's Troop D in Orlando. S.R. 50 passes through the heart of Orlando. On the far-east end, it ties the rural towns of Christmas and Bithlo to greater Orlando. Moving west, it threads together booming developments such as Avalon Park with largely Hispanic, working-class neighborhoods such as Union Park. It then needles past the new, neo-traditional village of Baldwin Park, the Asian-American community around Mills Avenue, through downtown Orlando and into the largely black neighborhoods of Parramore and Pine Hills. To the west, it connects the old but transforming suburbs of Ocoee, Winter Garden and Oakland. Some stretches deadlier The federal FARS database does not reveal exact accident locations of crashes and doesn't explain why the crashes happened. So the Sentinel also examined crash records from the Florida Highway Patrol and the Orlando, Ocoee and Winter Garden police departments since the start of 2001, for which full records were available. During that time, 70 crashes killed 80 people on Colonial in Orange. Very few fatal crashes happened in the most densely developed four-mile stretch in Orlando, from Humphries Avenue east of Orlando Executive Airport through downtown to Orange Blossom Trail on the near west side. Just three people were killed on that part of the road since 2001. That is a rare stretch of Colonial where the speed limit is 40 mph. It's also the most urban stretch, where traffic is almost always heavy; stoplights come every few blocks; the street typically has curbs, parallel parking and bike lanes; and buildings crowd the roadside. It all creates a jammed feel for drivers, prompting them to slow down. "Congestion is a lifesaver of pedestrians. Open and free roads are a death sentence," said Behnke of the FHP. There also were very few fatal wrecks west of John Young Parkway, heading through Ocoee, Winter Garden and Oakland. If Colonial has a valley of death, it is the 11-mile stretch of East Colonial from the eastern Orlando city limits at Humphries Avenue to Tanner Road. There, the speed limit ranges from 45 to 55 mph, and traffic signals are usually spaced a half-mile to a mile apart. There are almost no curbs, and most of the businesses -- ranging from tattoo parlors to the Barry University School of Law -- are set back dozens of yards, behind drainage ditches and parking lots. "It's just a much more open area, and we know people go faster in those settings," said Harry Barley, executive director of MetroPlan Orlando, a transportation-planning agency for Central Florida. On that part of Colonial, 48 people were killed in traffic crashes since the start of 2001. Badgett died there; so did Molina's son and Robbins. And within that valley, the stretch between Old Cheney Highway west of Semoran Boulevard and Goldenrod Road was particularly deadly. In that 2.4-mile segment, 18 crashes killed 24 people. There, chaos in the middle lane is more common. Most of Colonial between Semoran and Goldenrod has a bidirectional left-turn lane -- the open lane between two yellow lines that allows drivers to cross the road at any point from either direction. Such lanes appear sporadically on Colonial in the county and in Orlando, Ocoee and Winter Garden. Police and engineers often deride such lanes as "suicide lanes," not so much because cars might collide head-on, but because they allow people to cross traffic anywhere. In other locations on Colonial, opposing traffic is separated only by a double yellow line. At least 19 of the fatal accidents since the start of 2001 happened in stretches with no raised medians. Deadly nights Cathy Sproule faced danger head on in April 2001 as she was going home along East Colonial Drive after a late waitressing shift. As she approached Harrell Road, a Pontiac Grand Prix and a Plymouth Voyager shot across the median into the path of her roommate's Mustang, which Sproule was driving. There was no time to react. The car and minivan plowed into Sproule. Sproule, 21, was killed. Her roommate, in the passenger seat, was seriously injured, along with three people in the Grand Prix. "It's very difficult when you're laying in bed and you get that phone call that says she's been in an accident, and then you get another phone call that says she didn't make it through surgery," said Cathy's father, David Sproule. The nighttime crash that killed Sproule wasn't unusual. Colonial is particularly dangerous at night, Sentinel analysis found. Sixty-eight percent of the crashes on Colonial since 1998 happened after dark, with an additional 2 percent at dusk or dawn. Thirty-three percent happened in a three-hour period, 8 to 11 p.m. Part of the reason nighttime is so deadly is that street lighting is found only inside the cities of Orlando, Ocoee and Winter Garden or at expressway interchanges. Outside the city limits at night, headlights and parking-lot lights create glare, forming blinding holes of deep shadow in between. Experts say few drivers or pedestrians can judge the distance and speed of oncoming cars based on headlights. And the crush of commuter traffic eases its grip on the roadway at night, opening more road to fast, careless driving. Enforcement spotty Orlando, Ocoee and Winter Garden police patrol their stretches of the road, but more than two-thirds of Colonial is in unincorporated Orange County. The Sheriff's Office leaves most traffic-law enforcement and accident investigations to the Florida Highway Patrol. The patrol contends it must spend so much time and effort responding to accidents that troopers often have little time to crack down on bad driving. In the past year, the patrol has tried to free up more troopers to work traffic. And troopers frequently swing by hot spots when they have free time. "It's still hard for us to be where we need to be in terms of enforcement," FHP Lt. Anthony DiPace said. The state, Orange County and the cities also try to address traffic-safety concerns on Colonial. Since January 2003, there have been more than 30 safety studies done on the road, most leading to small-scale improvements, such as fine-tuning intersections, traffic signals and turn lanes at specific spots. "Basically, you've got a horrific situation on your hands that probably the local traffic engineers would throw up their hands and say, 'I don't know what else to do,' " said Gerald Donaldson, senior research director for Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, a Washington-based think tank. FDOT is planning $176 million in improvements to 10 miles of S.R. 50, including the Old Cheney-to-Goldenrod segment, starting at the end of this decade. Suicide lanes will be eliminated, replaced by raised medians to prevent left turns. Turns in and out of the highway will be restricted. Still, though safety experts are confident the fixes will make Colonial a safer highway, safety is not the main goal. Moving traffic is. For all its danger, Colonial remains critical to tying Central Floridians to Orlando, and to every neighborhood, car dealership, church and pawnshop along the way. Families still grieve The costs to families can be incalculable. On July 31, 2003, Cynthia Howard was bringing home her mother, Elizabeth Tippins, 62, after helping her straighten out some bills. Turning left onto West Colonial from Springdale Road, Howard, 43, got a green light and pulled into the road. Harry Lee, now 17, who did not have a drivers license and was driving east in a stolen truck, ran the red light on Colonial and slammed broadside into Howard's Pontiac, according police records. Howard, a security guard, died cradled in her mother's lap inside the mangled car, a witness told Orlando police. Tippins, the matriarch of a large extended family and in some ways to much of Apopka, died the next day. "She would do anything to help someone," said another Tippins daughter, Mary Howard, dean of students at Apopka Elementary School. "As far as the family trying to hold together and stay together and do the things we're accustomed to doing, it's been very hard." Cynthia Howard, with three children of her own, was the one who made sure everyone had fun, family members said. Thirteen hundred mourners came to their funeral. After Tippins and Howard died, their family put two little white crosses on the corner of the intersection. But Mary Howard does not drive past the markers. "If I have to go a couple miles out of my way, that's what I will do. I will not go on that road," she said. "We cannot bear to go on that road." Sentinel researcher Katy Miller and computer-projects specialist Liz Gibson contributed to this report. Scott Powers can be reached at 407-420-5441 or spowers@orlandosentinel.com. Get home delivery - up to 50% off ------------------------- Outta time!