KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WATE) — Knoxville’s Vision Zero Project is aiming to eliminate traffic related fatalities by 2040. On Tuesday, the project announced one improvement to help keep pedestrians safer in a location where a West High School student was hit while in a crosswalk earlier this year.
On February 27, a 16-year-old student at West High was left with “serious” injuries when she was struck by an SUV in a crosswalk near the school . According to the Vision Zero project, that incident sparked the need for the newly installed infrastructure.
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“The crosswalk was marked. The WALK pedestrian signal was active. She did everything right. However, she suffered injuries,” Project Zero’s post stated. “How can we prevent these kinds of incidents in the future?”
The city project went on to explain that left-turning vehicles are a danger to pedestrians, with drivers cutting across the intersection and taking turns diagonally at a high speed.