Community Corner

Stretch of Route 1 In Lorton Demands Drivers' Attention

Is the area unsafe or are recent accidents a series of unfortunate coincidences?

A series of violent accidents in the last six weeks on a roughly one-mile stretch of Route 1 has many concerned about the safety of the area.

The area in question is between Telegraph Road and the Tulley Gate entrance to Fort Belvoir (see highlighted area of map). There have been four crashes there since February 13:

  • February 13: a Woodbridge man, charged with driving while intoxicated among other offenses, is alleged to have caused an .
  • February 27: A woman traveling northbound on Route 1 hit a car driving southbound when she tried to make a u-turn. The driver who made the u-turn was charged with reckless driving.
  • March 14: Paul Krause, 48, of Fairfax Station, was killed when Carlos Sanchez-Ramos, who , crashed into his car. Both vehicles were traveling northbound on Route 1. Three others were also injured in the incident.
  • March 21: William Pitts, 54, of Fort Belvoir, was killed when the is alleged to have not seen Pitts’ vehicle stop near the traffic light at Route 1 and Fairfax County Parkway. Seven other people were injured in the chain-reaction crash that followed.

Police officers who have worked the area for years said they couldn’t recall a time when so many serious accidents occurred in the same place in such a short period of time.

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Mount Vernon Supervisor Gerry Hyland, who has been traveling the road for decades, said, “This is the type of thing that you don’t ever expect. I don’t recall ever seeing anything like this anywhere.”

Director of Public Affairs at Fort Belvoir, Don Carr, who has also spent a great deal of time on the road, concurred with Hyland. He could not think of a similar time where a spate of accidents plagued such a small area.

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While it might be tempting to blame the crashes on the volume of vehicles coming in and out of Fort Belvoir (and be concerned about the area with the arrival of even more traffic after BRAC in September), Carr cautioned against it. He noted that the traffic is not all related to Fort Belvoir. “There is an awful lot of traffic in the morning coming from the south that use Route 1 as an alternative to I-95,” Carr said. “And then they come back from the north in the afternoon.”

As a means of comparison, , Lorton Patch learned that the intersection of Hooes Road and Silverbrook Road in Lorton had 14 reported accidents in 2008. According to Eduardo Azcarate of the Fairfax County Police, in the last year there were 10 reported accidents at the intersection of Route 1 and Fairfax County Parkway, which is the nearest major intersection to where the most recent crashes have occurred.

Though speed was not identified as the cause of any of the four crashes, Hyland believes it might be part of the problem in the area. “No one goes 55 there,” Hyland said. “They want to get on or off the Parkway and the pedal goes to the floor.”

The circumstances of each accident are different. Charges were filed in the first three crashes and are expected to be filed in the fourth. Two of the crashes were alcohol-related and the other two appear to have been caused by careless driving. One occurred on a weekend morning, another occurred during a weekend evening, and the two fatal accidents occurred during afternoon rush hour.

Hyland thinks that in the short term the area could be made safer if police deployed officers there. In the long term, Hyland believes a median between the north and southbound lanes would help, and indeed, two of the four accidents saw cars crossing into oncoming traffic. In the longer term, Hyland believes the key is to lower the amount of cars on the road by offering alternatives to driving via mass transit.

Hyland also pointed out that some of the $150 million in funding that was lost when the House of Representatives voted against it in February would have improved roads north of the Fairfax County Parkway/Route 1 intersection.

Medians and lower traffic volume may help make the area safer, the accidents have served notice to motorists that nothing less than their undivided attention is needed while driving.


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