Three people were transported to area hospitals Monday afternoon following a severe motor vehicle accident at the intersection of state Route 44 and Hosford Road in Chardon Township.
Three people were transported to area hospitals with non life-threatening injuries Monday afternoon following a severe motor vehicle accident at the intersection of state Route 44 and Hosford Road in Chardon Township.
According to the Chardon Post of the Ohio State Highway Patrol, a motorist was traveling northbound on Route 44 when another car traveling eastbound on Hosford entered the intersection. The northbound vehicle struck the eastbound car, sending it toppling off the roadway.
Rescue crews from Chardon, Concord, Hambden and Munson fire departments responded to the scene.
It is the same intersection where two Chardon High School graduates were killed in a June 2017 car crash and a Concord Township woman died in a September 2019 accident.
Following the 2017 crash, the Ohio Department of Transportation completed a traffic signal study for the intersection and found it did not meet enough of the seven required warrants for a traffic signal to be installed, Amanda McFarland, an ODOT spokeswoman said in January 2018.
McFarland explained Ohio’s warrants for “Justifying Traffic Control Signals” are set forth in Chapter 4 of the Ohio Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices. In short, they are:
- Warrant 1, Eight-Hour Vehicular Volume
- Warrant 2, Four-Hour Vehicular Volume
- Warrant 3, Peak Hour
- Warrant 4, Pedestrian Volume
- Warrant 5, School Crossing
- Warrant 6, Coordinated Signal System
- Warrant 7, Crash Experience
- Warrant 8, Roadway Network
- Warrant 9, Intersection Near a Grade Crossing
A site has to meet at least one of the first three, McFarland said.
“In the case of the intersection of state Route 44 and Hosford Road, Warrant 3 did not apply as it is only used in unusual cases, such as office complexes, manufacturing plants, industrial complexes or high-occupancy vehicle facilities that attract or discharge large numbers of vehicles over a short time,” McFarland said in 2018.
The state engineer investigated the intersection based on Warrant 7, crash experience, but that alone cannot be used to justify a traffic signal, she added.
Because the intersection did not meet the threshold for four- or eight-hour traffic volume in warrants 1 and 2, no other warrants were considered by ODOT at that time.
However, ODOT did make improvements at the intersection, including installation of LED flashing stop signs on Hosford Road at Route 44 as well as the addition of two “stop bars” — thick white lines to indicate the proper stopping point — on Hosford Road westbound at Route 44.
