West Bloomfield Intersections Among Most Likely for Crashes

• Get Patch’s daily newsletter and real-time news alerts.

OAKLAND COUNTY, MI – If you’re traveling in the area of M-5 and Pontiac Trail in Commerce Township, be warned: The roundabout there was the most prone to traffic crashes, with 116 through early December.

That’s according to a study by Auburn Hills-based Traffic Improvement Association of Michigan, which analyzes crash data. Analysts are still crunching numbers for the annual report, but the Commerce Township roundabout figures to be the most accident prone in the county, with 20 more crashes than the other nearly 30 roundabouts in the county.

Oakland County is increasingly using roundabouts, and has more than any other county in Michigan. Traffic engineers say they’re safer than four-way intersections, with only 25 percent of the possible points of conflict than traditional intersections.

“(They) eliminate the potential for right-angle and head-on left-turn crashes, which often tend to result in serious injuries and fatalities,” Traffic Improvement Association executive director Jim Santilli told The Oakland Press in an email.

Other intersections in Oakland County with high accident rates include:

• The intersection of 12 Mile and Telegraph roads in Southfield was second-most accident prone in the county, with 96 crashes, 12 resulting in injury.
• The intersection Maple and Orchard Lake roads in West Bloomfield Township was the third-most accident prone, with 68 crashes, six resulting in injuries and one resulting in a fatality.
• The roundabout at Farmington and Maple roads in West Bloomfield Township is the fourth-most accident prone intersection, with 61 crashes, seven resulting in injuries.
• The intersection at Big Beaver and Rochester roads in Troy was the fifth-most accident prone, with 61 crashes, nine resulting in injuries.

Just because an intersection has a high number of crashes doesn’t make it dangerous, according to Santilli, who is chairman of the Michigan Governor’s Traffic Safety Advisory Commission’s Distracted Driving Action Team.

Often, he said, crashes are a result of driver behavior rather than road design.