Fatal Flaws: looking for answers on 5th Street

Design changes have been the focus following crash fatalities on 5th Street, but the story is more complex than that.

In response to recent fatalities on 5th Street, the community and media impulse has been to focus on the road itself, a straight, uninterrupted, two-way double-laned mile-long stretch of road south of town that is certainly asking for trouble. Indeed, any uninterrupted stretch of road can invite trouble if a driver is traveling too fast, and there are plenty of them in the counties around Charlottesville, where the vast majority of fatal crashes take place. The City has lowered the speed limit from 45mph to 40mph on 5th Street and plans to hire an engineering firm to come up with ways to redesign the road, such as adding stoplights, building a roundabout, and even reducing the number of lanes, and just posted a survey to collect community input about what should be done. That’s good. Clearly, the road is dangerously designed and has been for a long time. However, a closer look at the accidents and fatalities that have recently occurred on 5th Street, and particularly at the behavior o…