Parents, teachers, students and neighbors are calling for action after an SUV hit and seriously injured two middle-school students trying to cross Estes Drive in a marked crosswalk joining Caswell Road and the Estes Hills neighborhood with Guy B. Phillips Middle School.
On January 24th, with the help of NC Representative Verla Insko, Estes neighbors organized a meeting with North Carolina Department of Transportation officials to propose immediate safety improvements. They invited Town and school officials to attend. This is the letter sent to the senior NC DOT officials in advance of the meeting that focused on things that could be done in the short term to ensure safer pedestrian access, such as pedestrian activated lights on crosswalks. Long term actions mentioned were speed reductions and a stop light.
The crash happened on New Year’s Eve on Estes Drive as a 13 and a 14-year-old used the west Caswell crosswalk to return from the school grounds. Both girls were seriously injured, one remains in critical condition. The driver has been charged. A second pedestrian accident occurred a week later when a vehicle made a left turn onto eastbound Estes from southbound MLK Jr and hit a pedestrian in the intersection crosswalk.