Information About the Crash
The December, 2024 City Administrator’s report included details of a car/pedestrian crash on Fuller Rd. near Fuller Ct that occurred on November 15 and resulted in a serious injury.
AAPD released the UD-10 report and the full case report in January of 2025. Witness statements in the documents describe how a pedestrian was struck by a vehicle while in the crosswalk. In the crash, he sustained an injury so serious that he retained no memory of the event.
Witnesses also described how the driver exited her vehicle, checked on the injured pedestrian, and then left the scene without leaving insurance or contact information. A description and a picture of her vehicle and license plate were given to police when they responded to the crash. An AAPD officer made contact with the driver two weeks after the incident. According to her statement, she saw the flashing RRFB lights but did not know that she was obligated to stop for the pedestrian who had activated them. She also described that the pedestrian “ran out into the road unexpectedly” and “ran into her vehicle”.
Excerpt of UD-10 report.
Recommendations
Evaluation by Transportation Experts
The Transportation Engineering staff of the City of Ann Arbor need to evaluate this crash and recommend changes to prevent future incidents like this one. Any serious or fatal crash in the city should get this kind of scrutiny, with a focus on both quick, interim fixes and long term solutions. Their evaluation should include traffic counts of pedestrians and vehicles.
Reduce the number of Lanes
In 2023, Ann Arbor’s City Council passed a resolution directing staff to evaluate all multi-lane roads in the city’s jurisdiction–including Fuller–for reconfiguration or a “road diet”. According to the February Transportation Projects Update document shared with the Transportation Commission, the “City has advertised a request for proposal for Multilane Street Reconfiguration Evaluation. Staff reviewed and scored three proposals, awarding the work to Toole Design. Staff are working with Toole Design to finalize the scope of work and seek council approval.”
Slow it down
Reducing vehicular speeds throughout Ann Arbor is likely the most effective, singular approach to improving safety on Ann Arbor’s streets, or so says page 34 of Ann Arbor’s transportation plan. Also in that section of the transportation plan are the methods, strategies, and a timeline for achieving slower vehicle speeds. This segment of Fuller Rd, with a 35MPH speed limit, is an excellent candidate for lower speeds, as is the 40MPH segment of Fuller to the east, which is adjacent to a high school.
Educate and Enforce
Referring once again to page 34 of the transportation plan, it states that drivers failed to yield in 50% of Ann Arbor’s injury crashes involving a pedestrian or cyclist. According to the plan, Ann Arbor “has been working to address these issues by standardizing crosswalk design and signage; improving street lighting; educating residents, workers, and visitors about applicable laws; and using smart enforcement strategies. These efforts are having a positive impact.” This statement was true in 2019 and 2020 when the plan was being drafted, but by the time of this crash in December, 2024, it had been many years since Ann Arbor had focused on the education and enforcement elements.
Ann Arbor did indeed participate in an ambitious study which included targeted enforcement, driver education, and tracking of driver compliance with the local crosswalk ordinance. The goals of this study were to determine if these actions could change driver behavior towards pedestrians and how long-lasting any change might be. Ron Van Houten, a Western Michigan Professor, led the study. Council approved the funding for the city’s participation in the study (expenses like Engineering and AAPD staff member hours) in a June, 2016 resolution. The study was completed in 2018 and the final report documented how a coordinated effort positively impacted compliance at Ann Arbor’s crosswalks. The graph below shows how compliance at crosswalks increased by over 30% during the course of the study.
The Mean Percent of drivers stopping for pedestrians at enforcement sites during each condition of study of changing driver behavior. (Source: The Effects of High Visibility Enforcement on Driver Compliance to Pedestrian Stop Right-of-Way Laws in Ann Arbor, MI)
Crosswalk compliance rates are no longer tracked in Ann Arbor, so we don’t know if the positive results of the driver behavior effort were long lasting, or durable against extreme events like the 2020 pandemic. The circumstances of this crash on Fuller and others on Stadium, Catherine, Huron, and Packard indicate that drivers need to be reminded about Ann Arbor’s crosswalk ordinance and, perhaps more importantly, they need to be more concerned about possible consequences if they don’t abide by it.
Images from Google Street View show the crosswalk compliance rate sign on Stadium in July of 2018 (left) and the same location in July of 2019 (right). Signs at this location and 7 others throughout the city shared the current compliance rate for all to see.
65% compliance in July, 2018, apparently. (Image from Google Maps)
As of March 3, 2025, this case has been sent to the Washtenaw County Prosecutor’s office and is being reviewed for charges. CIAA will update this post when more details are available.
5/20/2025 Update: The driver in this crash has been charged with one count of “Failure to Stop at Scene of Personal Injury Accident.”