The Bee Ridge/Beneva intersection has a high crash rate. Why is that?
Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly identified the name of the road that has a continuous left-turn lane.
What sets the areas around Bee Ridge Road, where it intersects with Beneva Road, and Clark Road, from Catamaran Drive to Interstate 75, apart from many other heavily traveled roads in Sarasota County?
Bee Ridge/Beneva and Clark near I-75 rated as the most crash-prone intersection and road segment, respectively, in 2020, according to county traffic data.
Sgt. Darrell Seckendorf, who runs the Sarasota County Sherriff's Office's traffic unit, blames congestion and several factors. Bee Ridge Road, for example, has a continuous left-turn lane that can contribute to accidents.
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Intersection of Bee Ridge Road and Beneva Road
The intersection of Bee Ridge and Beneva had a crash rate of 3.27 per million entering vehicles in 2020, according to the county's annual Crash Summary Report. It had a total of 67 crashes that year.
Seckendorf said congestion is why the intersection has a higher crash rate than other areas. He noted that there are multiple apartment complexes in that area, as well as shopping locations and a Starbucks, which "doesn't have a parking lot big enough" to handle the amount of business volume it draws.
He also said that older drivers come to the Bee Ridge/Beneva area, as do younger drivers attending Suncoast Technical College.
Bee Ridge also has what Seckendorf calls a "suicide lane," which is a continuous left-turn lane in the center of the road.
“Sometimes people don’t know how to navigate that,” he said, “so we’ll have those head-on collisions or side-swipes on those type of roadways.”
Clark Road between Catamaran Drive and I-75
Clark Road from Catamaran Drive to I-75 had a crash rate of 8.15 per million vehicle miles in 2020, according to the county's Crash Summary Report. Fifteen crashes occurred on that stretch of Clark Road in 2020.
Seckendorf said the stretch is congested. Drivers there are also "jockeying" for the left-turn lane when they're trying to get on I-75.
"They don't plan properly to get into that left lane," Seckendorf said. Drivers will often be in the right or middle lane and will "jet over" into the turn lane, which can cause them to cut off other drivers or sideswipe them, he said.
The Florida Department of Transportation is building a diverging diamond interchange at Clark Road.
"That should help out on Clark," Seckendorf said.
Diverging diamond interchanges have free-flowing left-turn lanes onto the interstate, similar to right-turn lanes onto the interstate. Seckendorf noted that traffic flows very well at the diverging diamond on University Parkway.
He said that fender-benders do occur on that type of interchange, but "when it comes to the more serious crashes, I think you'd see a decline in that."
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What authorities do to promote safety in crash-prone areas
Each morning, Seckendorf looks at an online dashboard that shows traffic data from the previous day, including where crashes occurred. He then communicates that information with other Sheriff's Office personnel, so they can then concentrate more on those intersections.
Seckendorf said the office also receives a grant that allows it to increase the amount of traffic enforcement in certain "hotspots" in the county, one of which is the intersection of Beneva and Bee Ridge.
Enforcement measures include having deputies sit in their vehicles in certain locations and having the motorcycle unit patrol areas.
The Sarasota County Public Works department also plays a role in making county roadways safe. The department determines countermeasures to correct safety issues on roads and intersections, according to county staff. Some examples of countermeasures are pavement markings, signal timing modifications and the addition of turn lanes.
Anne Snabes covers city and county government for the Herald-Tribune. You can contact her at asnabes@gannett.com and follow her on Twitter at @a_snabes.
This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Bee Ridge/Beneva, Clark near I-75 most crash prone in Sarasota County
