Commission seeks crash data after members report repeated intersection incidents

Members of the Crafton Planning Commission raised repeated reports of vehicle crashes at a handful of borough intersections and asked staff to help assemble objective data to define the problem and recommend responses.

A commissioner described anecdotal accounts from local police and tow-truck operators that collisions recur at the same locations "every single day." Commission members asked whether police keep organized accident records and whether the state database could be queried for borough-specific crash information.

Participants discussed three possible data sources: (1) local police crash reports (the primary source), (2) the state crash database that compiles agency reports, and (3) volunteer or survey-style observations. One commissioner suggested that a data-savvy intern or student could compile and map reports from the state or local police databases to identify high-frequency locations.

A planning commissioner asked staff to contact the police chief and determine what crash data are available and whether an intern could be assigned to assemble a summary. A member of the public advised that the state database relies on police-submitted reports and warned that low-severity incidents that do not generate a police report may not be captured.

The commission outlined possible next steps: ask police to produce a summary of crashes by location and type for a recent multi-year period; hire or recruit a short-term intern to map and analyze the data; and consider whether to recommend engineering, enforcement or education measures to council depending on what the data show. No formal motion was taken at the meeting.