Information About the Crash
A crash involving a pedestrian and a car was included in the monthly pedestrian crash report in the December, 2024 City Administrator’s Report. It was the second pedestrian crash on this segment of Packard in a single week Three days earlier, only 500 feet away, a pedestrian was seriously injured in a crash at Packard and Arch.
Excerpt from December, 2024 Ann Arbor City Administrator’s Report
AAPD released the UD-10 for this crash to CIAA in February, 2025.
Excerpt from UD10 incident report.
The UD-10 describes how a pedestrian crossed Packard outside of a crosswalk. He was struck by a vehicle and sustained a serious injury. A witness who was with the pedestrian before the crash reported that he had been drinking. The witness did not know why he suddenly crossed the street.
Note that the diagram includes two inaccuracies. Firstly, the cross street is mislabeled. The crash occurred near the corner of Packard and Brookwood, not Brookside. The correct street name (Brookwood) is listed elsewhere in the UD-10 report and in the full case report that was generated for this incident. Secondly, Brookwood is not a through street, as shown in the UD-10 diagram. It actually ends at Packard.
The Packard and Brookwood intersection (Photo by Todd Marsee)
Recommendations
Evaluation of This Crash 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.
Slow it Down
The city’s comprehensive transportation plan Ann Arbor Moving Together, says the following about realizing the goal of zero deaths or serious injuries due to traffic crashes: “To achieve Vision Zero by 2025, Ann Arbor must re-design streets and intersections to reduce crashes and ensure that when people make mistakes and crashes happen, those crashes do not result in death and injury.”
People who make the wrong decision about when and where to cross, as this pedestrian appears to have, shouldn’t have to face serious injury or worse as a result. Drivers and pedestrians are human, and will make mistakes while using our transportation system. If the mistakes and resulting crashes can’t be eliminated, then they should be mitigated. One obvious way to lessen the effect of crashes on this segment of Packard is to lower the speed.
The street should be redesigned to calm traffic and encourage lower vehicle speeds, and the speed limit should be lowered from 30MPH to 25.