By Dave Stafford
The Herald Bulletin
ANDERSON, Ind. —
A day after a woman was killed and three people were injured in a crash at an intersection that has seen more than its share, city officials said they were planning to take action to improve safety at 38th Street and Layton Road. A church there has pleaded with officials to put a four-way stop at the crossroads.
“We’re going to review all the possibilities, but we have a problem there that is going to be addressed,” Anderson Board of Public Works member Mark Lamey said Friday. He said officials planned to meet on Tuesday to discuss the intersection where Treva May, 84, of Anderson, was involved in a crash Thursday afternoon and died en route to a hospital.
The intersection has been the scene of several serious crashes, according to members of Bethel United Methodist Church, which is located on the corner. The church reopened just this week, more than a year after a car involved in a crash smashed into the church, causing much of it to burn.
Board of Works member Shirley Weatherly said Friday that after the fiery church crash, “I turned in a request that something be done” to improve safety at the intersection.
“It’s just so heartbreaking that someone has lost their life,” Weatherly said Friday after the most recent crash. “I knew Treva.”
The situation prompted Sue Dawson to contact the church. Dawson’s daughter Nancy Ann Dawson was 13 when she died in 1972 in a crash at the intersection of County Road 67 and County Road 150 South that also killed another woman.
“I told them I’ll be doing anything I can to help them,” Dawson said in a telephone interview. “I’m still angry,” she said, noting that it took her 22 years of lobbying officials to get a flashing light placed at the intersection that she said had a history of serious crashes.
Dawson said she hoped officials moved quickly to put a four-way stop or flashing lights controlling traffic at 38th and Layton.
“It just should be automatic,” she said.
Contact Dave Stafford: 648-4250, dave.stafford@heraldbulletin.com
