OCALA - The Florida Department of Transportation is going to re-examine the intersection of State Roads 40 and 19 following two fatal crashes that occurred in less than a week.

"We are doing another analysis of the intersection," said FDOT spokesman Steve Homan. "In both instances the person, apparently, went through the light. We are going to check and see if circumstances have changed up there, but they are going to do a safety analysis of it."

Homan said such analyses usually are done within 30 days with results available "almost immediately."

That's good news to Rhonda Posey, whose mother, Janice "Lynn" Muldrow, was injured in one of the crashes.

Muldrow passes through the intersection two or three times a week when she travels from her home in Ocala to her job in DeLand. Muldrow is currently in Munroe Regional Medical Center with 27 staples in her head. The family is awaiting results of other tests.

"She's beat up pretty bad," Posey said.
Like her mother, Posey also travels to DeLand several times a week to her job. She said the intersection is unsafe.

"We will still have to drive this road, but we want it to be safe," Posey said. "It's just very dangerous."

She said the construction along the two-laned SR 40 makes her trip more hazardous and a recent controlled burn in the forest made visibility poor.

"I realize there has been a lot done to it, but it appears not to be enough," Posey said. "There's got to be something else."

Jeffrey L. Maye, 47, died early Monday morning when the 1999 Chevrolet Cavalier he was driving north on SR 19 collided with a 2001 Chevrolet Silverado being driven by Muldrow, 48, who was heading east on SR 40. Muldrow told investigators that Maye failed to stop at the stop sign and flashing red light. The Florida Highway Patrol report said there was no indication of any precrash braking for either vehicle.

Betty S.. McKee, 72, of Matthews, N.C. died Thursday when the 2003 Lincoln in which she was a passenger collided with a Ford truck. According to Florida Highway Patrol reports, McKee was riding in a car driven by James H. McKee, 74, who was injured in the crash. The couple was heading south on SR 19 when the driver reportedly failed to stop at the stop sign and flashing red light and drove into the path of the truck heading east on SR 40 with Daniel Pelland, 44, at the wheel. Pelland suffered minor injuries and his passenger, 39-year-old David W. Clark, was uninjured.

The latest deaths are just two in a long line of crashes at the intersection at the rural east end of Marion County near the Lake County line.

From 1999 to 2003, the most current data recorded by the Ocala Police Department, there were 71 crashes, both minor and serious ones, at the SR40/SR19 intersection. Of those 71 crashes, 11 involved fatalities. Although the intersection is out of Ocala Police's jurisdiction, that agency tracks Marion County crashes.

Officials are baffled by the latest crashes.

"It's people just running the stop sign," said Capt. Jeffrey Succi of the Florida Highway Patrol. "There're rumble strips on the road, so there's no reason people don't know there's an intersection. There's a stop sign and also a caution light. So, everything is there."

Succi said he asked DOT to repair the rumble strips because two of them were not as effective as they should be and that work was completed about 10 months ago, he said.

Weather conditions were cloudy at 6:30 a.m. on Monday and clear at 4:50 p.m. on Thursday when the latest deaths occurred. Speed was not an issue in either event, Succi said. Drug and alcohol test results are pending, but Succi said he was not aware of any substance abuse. The sight lines are clear from all directions.

"The only thing I can think is it may be a depth perception problem for some people," Succi said. "It's a wide open intersection and I don't understand it."

Drivers along both the north and southbound lanes of SR19 are required to stop at the intersection. In both directions there are signs warning that a stop sign is ahead, there are stop signs and there is a red flashing light. There are rumble strips in the road that cause noise and vibrations as vehicles drive across them in order to grab the motorists' attention. There are reflectors in the center of the road and reflectors on posts along with side of the road as one approaches the intersection from each direction. There are no speed limit signs for quite some distance - more than three miles in the southbound lane - as one approaches the intersection from either direction. However, there is a 55 mile per hour sign in the southbound lane about 500 feet after passing through the intersection.

There are fewer markings on the east and westbound lanes of SR40, but drivers in those lanes face a yellow caution light and are not required to come to a full stop. However, there are signs in the eastbound lane directing motorists to reduce their speed from 55 miles per hour to 45 miles per hour as they approach the intersection.

Succi said he did not believe he would increase patrol of the intersection.

"To put somebody out there to patrol it would take away from the number of crashes we are working in Marion County," Succi said. He said he does have selective enforcement and pays extra money to patrol the area, but that is done as long as the money holds out, and his most recent grant ran out Feb. 8. He said there currently is repaving work going on along SR40 and troopers are writing tickets there.

FDOT's Homan also is perplexed.
"I think it's a tragic coincidence," Homan said. "But we are not taking a chance. We are taking a look at it."

When asked about the high number of crashes documented by the Ocala Police, Homan said that "seems like a high number" and that the state will contact the local agencies for crash statistics.

Greg Slay, director of the Ocala/Marion County Metropolitan Planning Organization that plans county and city roads said a safety study of the SR40 corridor is currently in draft form and the final study should be presented to the MPO in March.

"We looked at the total crashes," Slay said. That includes both long-form crashes involving deaths, serious injury and major property damage and the short forms which are for minor crashes. From 2000-2002, the draft figures show there were 32 total crashes, 17 short-form crashes and 14 long-form crashes.

He said the final report would indicate if improvements are needed at the SR40/19 intersection.

"More than likely, it will be," Slay said. "If you have 30-something crashes in a two-year period, that's a significant amount, in our opinion." Traffic counts near the intersection of SR40/19 taken in 2002, the latest data available, show that 1,700 cars a day travel north of SR19 and 5,100 cars a day travel west of the intersection, he said.

Slay said a Preliminary Needs Assessment completed by FDOT in October 2002 show that on SR40 near the SR19 intersection cars at the 85 percentile are traveling at 63.5 miles per hour in a 55-mile-per-hour zone.

"You definitely have some high speed," Slay said, adding that he does not have all the information for the latest two fatal crashes.

Slay said he did not know if putting in a full traffic signal would help.

"They are running a red caution light now," Slay said.

Tony Nosse, DOT's district safety engineer for District 5, which includes Marion County, said improvements to site distances were made about a year and a half ago.

"These really rural intersections like that - people are on automatic pilot," Nosse said. "People blow on through. They don't see the other person coming."

Bruce McClure, service manager for Bernie Little Distributing, said rural intersections are a problem.

"People don't use the same caution as in town," McClure said.

Although his trucks do not go through that intersection, he said three years ago, when he was a truck driver for another employer, he used to drive through the SR40/19 intersection at midnight and 3 a.m.

"It's a dangerous intersection because it's two main roads," McClure said. "People are running the stop sign. That just happens on a rural intersection. There's nothing you can do about that."

Susan Latham Carr covers state issues. She may be reached at susan.carr@starbanner.com or 867-4156.