WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. (WGHP) — Driving dangers are top of mind this weekend with an estimated 42 million people on the roads.
The highways and interstates are not the only areas people can have crashes. Plenty of them happen on local roads.
One area FOX8 has received several complaints about is the intersection of Fishel Road and Peters Creek Parkway in Forsyth County. There’s no stop light, and you have to cross two lanes of traffic to turn left.
The intersection is across the street from the Griffith Volunteer Fire Department. In the past year, the chief has documented 12 crashes on the less than a mile-long stretch of Peters Creek Parkway. Most of them happened at the Fishel Road intersection.
“As a mom, I know it’s a bad area,” said Nikki Hill, whose daughter got in a crash at the intersection. “Something needs to be done.”
Hill’s teenage daughter got into a crash while driving on Peters Creek Parkway on May 18. She said a vehicle waiting on Fishel Road tried to turn too soon.
“I guess the driver just didn’t see her,” Hill said. “He pulled out too fast and hit her on the back end, spun her around, and she went straight into the guardrail.”
FOX8 crews found the car her daughter was driving sitting on the median when they drove down Peters Creek Parkway Friday afternoon. They also spotted a vehicle’s debris on the grass at the intersection.
Ten days before the crash, a woman’s dash cam captured video of a car hitting a red truck pulling out into the road, causing it to spin around before coming to a stop.
“It’s a bad area,” Hill said. “Lot of traffic. People in a rush.”
Our crews saw the rush on Friday shortly before 11 a.m. as a firetruck tried to make a U-turn on Peters Creek Parkway and had to hit the brakes when a driver in a hurry tried to turn ahead of it.
Griffith’s fire chief said as more housing developments are built in the area, the crashes are happening more often. They respond to about 12 to 15 per year.
Crews are building townhomes on Fishel Road, which people fear will make the problem worse.
“Traffic is only going to get busier, and then there’s going to be younger kids, school-aged kids going through there,” Hill said.
Hill wants to see a stoplight put up before someone gets seriously hurt.
“Too much traffic to handle crossing two lanes of traffic without a light,” she said.
Griffith’s fire chief also wants a stoplight.
His team recently got new rescue tools. So far, they’ve used them at three crashes at the Fishel Road intersection.
A spokesperson with the North Carolina Department of Transportation said they have started a traffic study in the area after someone complained about a crash last week.
