Northridge Has State's Most Dangerous Intersection

NORTHRIDGE (CBSLA) — It's a warning for drivers in Northridge. An intersection there has been labeled the most dangerous in the state.

A birds-eye view from Drone Force 2 shows afternoon traffic flowing  smoothly at the corner of Devonshire Street and Reseda Boulevard, but that's not always the case.

"Last March, 2017, I was passing the light and then someone coming out of the car wash, just boom, t-boned and hit me out of nowhere," David Martinez said.

He was out of work for seven months.

"I've seen a lot of car accidents all the time, right there," a pedestrian said. "You get that 3 to 5 rush hour and that's when you have most accidents happen."

Time Magazine looked at 10 years of data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which found Devonshire and Reseda most dangerous in California.

A team from the Institute of Sustainability at Cal State Northridge came up with the same conclusion using information from the Traffic Injury Mapping System.

"There's a lot going on here," Loraine Lundquist from Cal State said. "There's a lot of cars coming in and out from a lot of different driveways. There's a car wash here that has a lot of traffic."

They looked at data from 2006 to 2016 and found 108 traffic accidents at this intersection alone.

"There were 29 children under the age of 14 who were victims right here at this intersection of some kind of crash or injury," Lindquist said.

The posted speed limit is 40 miles per hour.

Sarah Sidani is one of five students who worked on the project. The team also identified two more intersections nearby as dangerous due to auto accidents. They are at Nordoff Street and Balboa Boulevard and Lindley Avenue and Roscoe Boulevard. They made some recommendations to the city.

"People drive really fast. They drive on this road like it's a freeway," Sidani said. "Some of those {suggestions} were street trees and buffeted bike lanes and protected turn singles. And to make crosswalks more visible. "