TOOELE, Utah — An accident at the intersection of 400 North and 100 East in Tooele on Sunday has sparked up conversation among neighbors about what the city can do to prevent this from happening.
Shannon Bullock has security camera footage of a car running a stop sign and colliding with a pickup hauling a camping trailer, causing the trailer to tip over.
This the 15th accident Bullock has seen in that intersection since January.
There have been more than 50, Bullock said, since last May.
“When the two cars come together, it sounds like a big bomb,” said Bullock.
It's a sound all too familiar to her neighbors.
“That one went through the fence and got stopped by a stump I have in the yard,” said Jonathan Taylor, who lives kitty-corner to Bullock.
Taylor’s fence has been plowed through twice in the last month — the vehicles stopping short less than 50 yards away from his front door.
“We’ve got a tree and a stump to stop them,” said Taylor.
Drivers use the back road of 100 East as a way to avoid traffic on Main Street because there are no stop signs — except for the one on Taylor’s and Bullock's street.
Dee Byergo, who lives on the other corner to Taylor and Bullock, has put up signs that read “drive like your kids live here.”
“I watched two little girls almost get hit,” said Byergo. “They were so close they were actually touching the hood of the car.”
That’s when Byergo decided to take this to Tooele City.
Over the past two years, Byergo said he has made multiple proposals asking for painted crosswalks, LED lights on the two stop signs or even adding more speed limit and traffic signs.
After paying at least $6,000 in damage on his property alone, Byergo said the changes he proposes would potentially cost the city three or four grand.
“It doesn’t even total up to what I’ve had in damage,” said Byergo.
The damage done to his property can be measured in dollars, but Byergo is a veteran and said the sounds from the accident trigger his PTSD.
“When i hear a noise like that, it makes the hair on the back of my neck stands up,” said Byergo.
Tooele City announced a plan to put LED lights on the stop signs, something Byergo said is a step in the right direction, but hopes more can be done.
