Recently, two collisions occurred a week apart from each other in parking lot B.
While this pattern does raise safety concerns, none of the aforementioned accidents have resulted in serious injuries to students involved.
The first crash occurred on Sept. 24 at 12:43 p.m. It involved two ECC students at an uncontrolled intersection, which is an area that lacks right-of-way indicators such as traffic lights or signs. Security camera footage shows two cars at the uncontrolled intersection, where failure to slow down or yield resulted in a T-bone collision. The speed at which the two cars were going is unknown.
There were no major injuries to anyone involved, although airbags were deployed due to the nature of the crash.
“The driver of the Mazda appeared to have a red mark on the side,” Kintz said, “I’m going to guess that’s from the airbag curtain. The paramedics came, checked them out, and they were released at the scene.”
No charges were pressed as the accident occurred in an uncontrolled intersection and no one involved was under the influence or recklessly driving.
“Most of our crashes do not involve injuries and because this one involved some minor injuries, it would increase the severity level a bit,” Kintz said.
The second crash happened on Oct. 1 at 9:20 a.m.
While this crash was near the Sept. 24 crash, the collision actually happened at the stop signs on Gail Shadwell Drive.
It also involved two ECC students, where one car entering the lot stopped at the sign and then started to turn left, while the other, leaving towards Spartan Drive, drove through the intersection without stopping. Similar to the last crash, this collision resulted in no injuries.
According to ECC Police records, there have been 11 crashes so far this semester. As of now, this is less than the total amount last year, where ECC saw 32 total crashes across the entire academic year.
Due to the frequent nature of these parking lot crashes, ECC Police are increasing their safety precautions. They periodically view crash history reports and implement much needed changes. As always, they will continue to patrol ECC’s parking lots and monitor for safety concerns.
Kintz has a few pieces of advice for ECC students regarding safety: if involved in an accident, he recommends that students contact the police right away, whether that be the ECC Police at (847-214-7777) or 911.
When it comes to preventing these accidents, Kintz advises students and staff to drive with caution: “In a parking lot, you want to keep your speeds really slow and know when you come up to intersections. You should really be slowing down and looking for cross traffic … it’ll save a lot of time and aggravation.”
