Another terrible accident at intersection with no stoplight
Lori Westerlin froze when she heard the scream of the ambulance's siren and the whir of the helicopter heading over her Elburn home late in the afternoon of Nov. 9.
She knew those sounds meant only one thing: Another terrible accident was happening at the intersection where, just four months earlier, her son was seriously injured in a head-on collision that left another person dead.
"I had that gut feeling," Westerlin said. "I could have shut my eyes and brought myself back to the night in July, July 14. I just knew in my heart (something bad was happening)."
She was right. An 18-year-old woman was killed and 19-year-old man was injured in a crash involving two cars and a semi-tractor trailer at the intersection of Route 38 and Meredith Road in unincorporated Virgil Township on Nov. 9.
Westerlin's son, 20-year-old Mitchell, recently underwent his fifth surgery stemming from his accident in July. Also injured was his girlfriend and passenger, Melanie Carlson.
The young couple was heading home from a party when Westerlin's Ford Taurus was hit head-on by a minivan being driven by Michael Griesbaum. Griesbaum's passenger, Vaughn Olson, died three weeks later in a rehabilitation center. Both men were St. Charles police officers.
Griesbaum, who was heading west on Route 38 when Westerlin was driving east, told police he hit the Taurus while swerving to avoid a vehicle at Meredith.
North- and southbound traffic along Meredith Road is controlled by stop signs. At the request of Kaneland school district officials, the Illinois Department of Transportation recently installed flashing yellow lights along Route 38. IDOT is responsible for maintaining Route 38 because it is a state road.
The yellow lights are an interim solution until state funds are available for a permanent stoplight. That won't happen until at least the fiscal 2009 budget, much to the frustration of Westerlin and Carlson.
"What worries me is how many more lives will be destroyed before the budget finally allows for a stoplight at the intersection," Carlson wrote in a letter to the Daily Herald. "Are these blinking lights and now two ghostly crosses, one of which could just as easily have had my name on it, supposed to be enough for traffic to really yield and be careful?"
Both Westerlin and Carlson are graduates of Kaneland High School, which is less than half a mile from the crash site. Carlson said she worries about kids -- including her 11-year-old sister -- who travel through that intersection twice daily on the bus.
Westerlin, a sophomore at Southern Illinois University, and Carlson, a freshman at the University of Illinois, took this semester off because of their injuries. They plan to return in January.
Kane County Board member Jan Carlson, who represents the area and also serves as chairman of the board's transportation committee, on Tuesday asked officials from the Kane County Division of Transportation to erect flashing yellow lights on Meredith, a county road. The lights will be installed as soon as possible, he said, along with a sign advising drivers that cross traffic on Route 38 does not stop.
"I don't know what more we can do short of having a traffic signal there," he said.