[9/18/03]More signs could be added to U.S. 61 approaching the northernmost developed areas of Vicksburg to alert drivers, a state department of transportation official said.

“I will have our traffic people look at it to see if there’s anything that can be done,” assistant district engineer Carl Middleton of the Mississippi Department of Transportation’s Yazoo City regional office said.

Middleton was responding to a question about any action MDOT may be considering following Tuesday afternoon’s fatal wreck at U.S. 61 and Sherman Avenue. Rory Allen Roberson, 52, 104 Brunswick Drive, Eagle Lake, died when her Chevrolet Suburban was struck by an 18-wheeler traveling south. Witnesses said the tractor-trailer ran a red light, Mississippi Highway Patrol Sgt. Daniel Lewis said after initial investigation at the scene.

Bryant Cox of Jacksonville, Fla., the driver of the truck, was treated and released from River Region Medical Center after the wreck. No charges had been filed, and the investigation into the wreck was continuing.

Middleton said more advance-warning signs, possibly of the kind that use flashing lights to call drivers’ attention to approaching intersections, could be considered by the MDOT’s traffic division.

Warren County Sheriff Martin Pace said he would welcome any such measures the MDOT might consider.

“I am concerned about the traffic flow and the accidents in that area,” he said.

E-911 records showed that Tuesday’s accident was the fourth there in a month. Of the other three, one involved injuries.

The two-mile stretch of U.S. 61 from Interstate 20 north to Bowie Road has an average daily vehicle traffic count of about 24,000, the most recent MDOT estimates show.

“That particular area is one of the fastest-growing regions of Warren County, with an ever-increasing volume of traffic on U.S. 61 North,” Pace said.

Vehicles traveling that stretch pass entrances to a hospital and school and two dozen or so businesses. Those traveling south may merge directly onto Vicksburg’s most heavily traveled stretch of thoroughfare with an estimated average daily traffic count of 51,000, Interstate 20 from U.S. 61 to Clay Street.

By contrast, the stretch of Bowie Road north on U.S. 61 to the Yazoo River bridge, though also four-lane and divided, has an average daily traffic count of 10,000 and remains practically free of commercial development along its 7.6 miles.

Southbound drivers’ first warning of the Bowie Road signal are two pairs of yellow-diamond, traffic-signal signs on each side of the southbound lanes, about two-tenths of a mile north of the signal and just south of where the speed limit changes from 65 to 55 mph.

For drivers continuing south to Sherman Avenue, signs with sometimes-flashing lights indicate a speed limit of 45 mph during school hours. When the lights are not flashing, the posted speed limit along that stretch is 55 mph.

Pace said he is concerned about accidents in the area “to the extent that I had representatives of the DOT meet with me about a year ago” to discuss accidents at U.S. 61’s intersection with Culkin Road, 0.8 mile south of Sherman Avenue.

Primary responsibility for enforcing traffic laws and investigating accidents along U.S. 61 lies with the Mississippi Highway Patrol, but sheriff’s deputies are often first on the scene.