During the last month of October, there were multiple car accidents in the streets around Dickinson College. According to the Carlisle Police Department, there was a crash at the intersection between W. Louther Street and N. West Street on Wednesday, Oct. 12, and another crash at the same intersection about a week later. Residents of the Pi Beta Phi house also witnessed another crash at the intersection of W. Louther Street and N. West Street on Oct. 7, ahead of two other crashes.
Laura Mertz, 24, said she heard the crash from inside her house and went outside to investigate, reporting: “I saw a car crash into the building and then another car near that car. A car was hit. There was a fire truck, an ambulance and a police car and they blocked the road.”
Car accidents at intersections that run through the Dickinson campus are not new this semester. Last spring, Sasha Quinlan ’22 was involved in an accident at the intersection of N. College Street and W. Louther Street, the most recent three accidents on one street.
Quinlan explained that she was hit by a car while crossing a pedestrian crossing. According to Quinlan, “I see the walk sign is on, I wait, look left and right, then I’m walking, then she [the driver] Hit me at that intersection in the quarry with a left turn, but I didn’t see her because she was coming from the other lane, and I don’t really remember anything after that. ” As a result of this incident, Quinlan Said she experienced short and long-term health problems.
Recent accidents near campus and Sasha’s experience raise questions about traffic safety on the Dickinson campus. In seeking more information about accidents near campus, one of Carlisle PD’s public safety coordinators, who has been with the department for nearly 33 years, explained that the department classifies crashes as “reportable” or “non-reportable.”
For an accident to be considered “reportable,” it involves injury or requires a tow vehicle. Anything else falls into the “non-reportable” category. In addition to the three reported incidents in October, he revealed there have been 506 non-reportable incidents and 128 reportable incidents in the district over the past 10 months. However, he also reported that he would not say that the number of accidents at Dickinson College was consistently higher or increased compared to the general Carlisle area. While the accident rate on campus does not appear to be high compared to the rest of the town, he did mention that the Carlisle Police Department does receive a lot of complaints about crosswalks on campus.
