A Mississippi Department of Transportation vehicle sits Wednesday on U.S. 61 North at Sherman Avenue.(Melanie Duncan Thortis The Vicksburg Post)

[9/25/03]Traffic leaving Sherman Avenue to enter U.S. 61 North now gets the green light longer, a state Department of Transportation official said Wednesday.

Several wrecks have occurred at the crossing since Sherman Avenue School and River Region Medical Center opened, including a fatal accident Sept. 16.

But the signal’s timing was changed in response to citizen complaints about the duration, MDOT traffic signal engineer Eddie Robinson said.

He added there was no indication the wreck nine days ago in which Rory Allen Roberson, 52, was killed was related to signal settings. Witness and Mississippi Highway Safety Patrol reports said Roberson was leaving Sherman to turn north onto the highway at the beginning of a green cycle when her SUV was struck by a southbound tractor-trailer that ran a red light.

Complaints about the intersection have included letters to the editor saying that the signal does not stop U.S. 61 traffic long enough to give crossing traffic time to clear the intersection.

“We met with the district engineer on-site,” Robinson said of a Wednesday session that included a representative of the MDOT’s district office in Yazoo City.

Cross-traffic now gets the green for from 8 to 20 seconds, depending on how many cars are detected by a magnetic, vehicle-sensing device in the road there.

Before the changes, cross-traffic got the green for 6 to 15 seconds, he said.

For traffic on U.S. 61, red lights are triggered only by cross-traffic at the signal or traffic in left-turn lanes on U.S. 61 at the signal, he added.

There is also a delay, so the light for highway traffic doesn’t turn green the instant the light for crossing traffic turns red.

Chief Willie Huff of the MDOT’s traffic division in Jackson also said a department law-enforcement officer, Sgt. William Henderson, was stationed at the intersection Wednesday “trying to slow truck traffic down.”

The MDOT law-enforcement division’s primary function is to regulate commercial vehicles in such aspects as weight, taxes and safe loads, Huff said. He said Wednesday’s officer-stationing at the intersection, which was to last about two-and-a-half hours, may be repeated later.

“Any time we can put a marked unit somewhere to deter the careless drivers, then the public is better served,” he said. “We’re just trying to be visible.”

Sherman Avenue School opened in September 1998. River Region Medical Center opened in February 2002.