HARRISBURG, Pa. — On the night of April 20, 2016, Stephen Roth of Paxtang Borough heard a crash. He ran outside, afraid a neighbor may have been hit by a car.
“When you’re woken up at 2 o’clock in the morning by a screeching, slamming sound, and you come out and are looking for your neighbor in a sideways car, hoping he’s not dead, that’s unnerving,” Roth explained.
It turned out a car had sideswiped eight vehicles along the 3600 block of Derry Street and flipped. The unidentified driver’s arm was crushed under the car, taking first responders 45 minutes to rescue him. Roth said the man’s screams disturbed him so much that he had to go back inside.
That’s not the only crash that has affected Roth. His daughter’s car was hit by a vehicle twice while parked on Derry St. The second crash totaled her car.
At least half a dozen neighbors said their parked cars had been hit near the intersection.
“When I first moved here in 1996, there wasn’t as much traffic at that time,” said Vanessa Kenny, who also lives on Derry St. “But over the years it just seems like there have been more accidents.”
“I’ve lost three cars in one night that were all parked in a row here,” said Glenn Dalton, who lives on Derry Street and said a drunken driver hit and totaled his Toyota, Dodge Caravan and his son’s car.
“It’s just crazy," Dalton said. "I don’t know what to do about it, but I know a lot of us started parking our cars in the alleys because it’s so dangerous to leave them parked.”
PennDOT provided FOX43 with a crash report for the 3600 block of Derry Street. It shows only eight reportable crashes from 2017 through 2021, but the true number is likely much higher because it only includes crashes when someone was injured or an involved vehicle was so damaged it had to be towed.
However, in response to complaints by residents, Swatara Township Police, which took over coverage of Paxtang Borough in 2014, conducted a traffic study at the intersection of Derry Street and Wilhelm Road in June 2021.
The report found the top cause of reportable crashes was DUI, according to Lt. Tom Stauffer. It found the crashes were not the result of speed or the position of parked cars, so, no changes were recommended for the intersection.
The police department is now actively conducting a separate traffic study to determine if a traffic light is needed on the intersection, Lt. Stauffer said.
The process to install a light is long and involves multiple agencies. If the initial Swatara Twp. Police traffic study recommends a traffic light be installed, Paxtang Borough would then need to hire an engineer to conduct a more in-depth traffic study.
In this case, the intersection forms the border between Paxtang Borough and Swatara Township, so both municipalities would need to approve the decision to request a traffic light from PennDOT. The municipalities would then need to provide the funding for the improvements.
Despite the lengthy process, Roth said he would keep fighting for a change.
“These are not minor accidents. These are multi-million dollar [accidents],” Roth explained.
“The last accident was literally over a million dollars in damage. At what point is that going to translate to somebody’s life? I don’t think it’s worth it.”