VIRGINIA BEACH – Care to take a guess where so far this year there have been the most automobile crashes in the city?
Take your time.
Sorry. Time’s up.
The answer is, though not by much, the intersection of First Colonial Road and Virginia Beach Boulevard with a “cluster” of 20 crashes between Jan. 1 and June 27.
The area of Lynnhaven Parkway and Princess Anne Road is a close second with 19 during the same time period.
That makes the two locations the sixth and the eighth respectively in the entire state for the highest “cluster” of crashes so far this year.
Brandy Brubaker, public and media relations for the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles said the cluster ranking are based on an algorithm.
“The crashes have to occur within 250 feet of another crash in order to trigger a cluster count, and they have to occur on the same roadway,” she said. “For example, if you looked at a five-mile radius with the highest number of crashes instead, you might get a completely different result – like the Mixing Bowl area in Northern Virginia.”
Also in the city, the cluster in the area of Rosemont Road and Virginia Beach Boulevard has the 10th highest number of crashes in the state with 17. At Indian River and Providence roads there have been 16 crashes, which is tied for the 11th highest cluster, while the Bonney Road/Euclid Road/and Independence Boulevard cluster has totaled 15 crashes so far this year.
Brubaker said the crashes are recorded in the DMV’s TREDS system and includes reports from both state and local law enforcement.
In 2017 the Great Neck/Old Great Neck/Virginia Beach Boulevard cluster topped the city’s list for crashes with 51 for the year. That made it 11th in the state, while the Lynnhaven Parkway/Lynnhaven Road/Viking Drive cluster totaled 47, tying it for 14th most.
Bonney Road/Rosemont Road/Virginia Beach Boulevard totaled 45 (16th) and Bonney Road/Euclid Road/Independence Boulevard and the ramp recorded 44 (Tie-17th).
