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CNN Live At Daybreak

The Country's Most Dangerous Intersections

Aired June 27, 2001 - 07:45   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BRIAN NELSON, CNN ANCHOR: Most drivers can talk about their worst hometown intersection, a crossroads that is notorious for accidents. Well, this morning one insurance company unveils its list of the nation's worst and its plans to do something about it.

John Nepomucemo of State Farm Insurance joins us from Washington this morning. Good morning, Mr. Nepomucemo.

(CROSSTALK)

NELSON: What about -- let's start, first of all, why did you compile this list? before we get to the worst. We'll ask people to hang on for the worst. But why did you compile the list in the first place?

JOHN NEPOMUCEMO, STATE FARM INSURANCE: Since State Farm opened its doors and sold its first auto insurance policy in 1922, we've been -- we made a promise to our -- to that first customer that we would protect him from loss.

Since then, in keeping with that promise, we've initiated many auto and highway safety initiatives aimed at reducing the injuries to people and the damage to cars that result from crashes. This is just one more of those initiatives that we feel can have an impact on highway safety.

NELSON: OK, good, so you've identified the top 10. Let's start with No. 1. What is the worst intersection, in State Farm's estimation, in this country?

NEPOMUCEMO: The most dangerous intersection, in our estimation, is the intersection of Pines and Flamingo Road in Pembroke Pines, which is in Suburban Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

NELSON: Now, I've been there. What makes it so bad?

NEPOMUCEMO: It -- this is a very wide-open intersection -- lots of traffic. The city tells us this intersection pushes through something along the order of 200,000 vehicles per day. We feel that volumes on that order demand more attention to detail. And perhaps, because it's so high, in terms of the volume, the problems that drivers are having at those intersections are perhaps magnified. And we should pay more attention to things that can help improve the safety at the intersections. For example, there are two left-turn lanes at these -- at these intersections -- many of these intersections, actually. And usually, there's only one left-turn guidance line. Well, based on our claims, we know that people are drifting into the other lane when they're turning left. They're having trouble navigating that left turn. What we would suggest is perhaps a second line so that people can use it to track their left turn movement.

NELSON: Now, just for our viewers here, you've got two other intersections in Philadelphia, one in Phoenix, two in Tulsa, another in Phoenix, one in Frisco, Texas and one in Louisiana and California.

Now, what are you doing about trying to correct the problem? I understand there's some money involved here for local communities.

NEPOMUCEMO: Right. We're also providing $20,000 for each of these communities that are on our list to identify the potential mitigation measures, from an engineering perspective. This goes towards a traffic engineering study that we hope can identify some inexpensive solutions to those problems that the drivers are having.

In addition to that -- in addition to the $20,000, we're also providing a $100,000 grant to facilitate the actual improvements at those intersections so that those inexpensive improvements can be done in the short term, rather than long term.

NELSON: Mr. Nepomucemo, I've only got a couple of seconds left. I want to ask you this. There was -- none of the dangerous intersections from the last list made it onto this year's list. Is that a good sign? Does that mean things were corrected?

NEPOMUCEMO: Unfortunately, there's not been enough time between the time that we did our first list two years ago and this year's list. The difference primarily comes from the crash index that we've developed. We feel that we've enhanced what we've done in terms of how we measure danger. We've doubled the term, the period that we are looking at from one year to two.

We've also incorporated the severity of the crash, so that those intersections which have more serious crashes and more property damage at them are weighted higher. And so this tends to reflect danger more.

NELSON: Any help is welcome. So we thank you for being with us this morning.

NEPOMUCEMO: Thank you.

NELSON: John Nepomucemo from State Farm Insurance, thank you for being with us.

NEPOMUCEMO: Thank you very much.

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