GUILDERLAND — Not only did the woman driving the gray SUV nearly hit Rachel Carl’s son while he was in the crosswalk on his way to the nearby high school, but she also gave him the finger as he ran across the road to safety.

This happened, Carl said, on Jan. 26, three days after another high-school student suffered minor injuries in a hit-and-run accident in the same intersection. Both students were walking to school in the predawn hours.

Carl said her son had been late to school four times this year, waiting through multiple traffic-light cycles for a safe opportunity to cross. He tries to leave the house at 7 a.m., she said, which gives him a half hour, although the walk should take 10 minutes.

Deputy Chief Curtis Cox of the Guilderland Police said this week that, since the Jan. 23 accident, Chief Carol Lawlor has instructed her officers to monitor the intersection, and to reach out to the New York State Department of Transportation to see what changes could improve safety at the intersection.

Cox outlined these changes, which have been made:

— Leading pedestrian interval: The signal at the crosswalk that goes across Route 146 will be changed, to stop traffic in all directions for seven seconds to allow a pedestrian enough time to get well into the crosswalk, where drivers must yield to them.

Until now, pressing the pedestrian-crossing button had made a pedestrian signal and a countdown timer appear, but the traffic headed in the same direction had also had a green light, with the result that vehicles had legally continued to turn into the crosswalk, while pedestrians waited on the sidewalk through the countdown;

— Police monitoring: Police will continue to monitor the intersection, to see how things are going there; and

— Variable message sign: The state DOT placed a huge digital sign near the end of School Road Wednesday. The message, which faces cars coming from the direction of the high school, says, “Turning vehicles must yield to pedestrians.” The sign will remain there for one week, said DOT spokesman Bryan Viggiani.

School response

School superintendent Marie Wiles this week said she thought that stopping traffic in all directions for seven seconds would be “a huge help,” because it would eliminate any confusion among drivers as to whether someone standing on the sidewalk planned to cross or not and would get the pedestrian safely into the highly visible crosswalk “where it’s clear that they have the right-of-way.”

Wiles said, too, that the district’s transportation supervisor, Danielle Poirier, had reminded all of the district’s bus drivers that it is their responsibility, if it looks like someone is poised to enter a crosswalk, to try very hard to make eye contact, to see if the person is trying to cross.

The leading pedestrian interval will go a long way, Wiles said, to helping drivers “figure out what people’s intent is.”

Wiles said district officials have not yet discussed whether a crossing guard is needed before and after school. She said that the districtwide safety committee — which includes school resource officer Nicholas Ingle and the district’s safety specialist Tim Murphy as well as representatives from all of the district’s school buildings — would be meeting Tuesday afternoon; the idea of a crossing guard might come up then, she said, adding that the meeting is not open to the public.

Wiles added that crossing guards usually work for municipalities, under the supervision of police, and not for school districts.

Kenneth Kennedy, vice president of the Guilderland Central School District Employees Association, told The Enterprise a veteran bus driver had witnessed the accident and called police with the license-plate number of the driver who hit the student. He declined to name the driver. Kennedy said the district’s bus drivers are well trained and dedicated and don’t want to see any kids endangered. (See related letter to the editor.)

Hit-and-run details emerge

The driver who hit a student just before 7 a.m. on Jan. 23 and then left the scene was Kaitlin Burkart, 21, of Delmar, Cox said. Burkart was issued two tickets, he said: one for leaving the scene of a personal-injury accident, a misdemeanor, and the other for failing to yield the right-of-way to a pedestrian, an infraction.

The student was not seriously injured, police said at the time, although the accident report says that he complained of shoulder and upper-arm pain.

The 9-1-1 call came in at 6:58 a.m., the report says. Sunrise on Jan. 23 was at 7:19 a.m., so it was dark. According to the accident report, it was raining.

Burkart had a green light, the report says, and the student “had green flashing on the pedestrian crossing light.” Burkart told police that the student had been wearing dark clothes and that she did not see him halfway across the crosswalk, the report says.

Burkart told police that she had stopped to ask the pedestrian if he was OK and that he had shrugged his shoulders and walked away. She told police she did not know what she should do, because she thought he was OK, the report says.

Cox said that, if a driver were to hit a pedestrian who then walked away, the driver should stop and contact law-enforcement authorities to come and see that everything was OK and to file a report if necessary.

Crosswalk conundrum

According to Vehicle and Traffic Law, pedestrians must actually be in the crosswalk for cars to be obligated to stop, Cox said.

Asked about this, Wiles said this week, “I don’t think we want to see people standing in the road.” She added, ‘With this delay, it’ll be red all the way around, so no one will be going at all.”

This week, DOT spokesman Viggiani agreed that the law does say that motorists must yield to pedestrians who are already in the crosswalk, but, if pedestrian-crossing lights are activated, he said, motorists should notice that and be aware that pedestrians might be in the area.

Viggiani, earlier, emphasized the responsibility of turning drivers. “Vehicles making a turn should always slow down and check for pedestrians or bicyclists, period,” he said, adding that this is true even when a driver has a solid green traffic light. It’s all the more true, he said, when turning into a crosswalk, and truer still when a pedestrian signal is activated.

On Wednesday morning, the DOT placed a large variable-message sign on School Road in the parking lot of the Lukoil station. The sign, which faces in the direction of vehicles coming from the high school, says, “Turning vehicles must yield to pedestrians.”

At this intersection, the leading pedestrian interval signal, or LPI, should, Viggiani said, increase driver awareness of pedestrians and enhance the existing signs that tell turning drivers to yield to pedestrians.

The LPI will work 24 hours a day, seven days a week, Viggiani said, not just before and after school. It will work whenever a pedestrian pushes the button, so, if a child goes home sick from school early or attends an event on the weekends, he or she will still have the extra time to get well into the crosswalk while all traffic has a red light, he said.  

The priority, Viggiani said, was to deal with Route 146, based on input from the police and the community. The DOT will continue to monitor the situation in that crosswalk, to see how the LPI functions and will also look into what safety enhancements might be needed for pedestrians crossing School Road, he said.

“We’re optimistic that this will improve the situation for all users,” he said.

Carl said she thought the leading pedestrian interval would help, but she was angry to learn that it had only been set up for one of the crosswalks.

Children have to cross School Road, too, she pointed out, referring to the street where her son was almost hit while in the crosswalk.

“It’s only fixing half the problem,” she said.