Many Bismarck community members are worried about an intersection they say has a number of crashes and has affected many lives.

“There’s accidents there all the time and it’s absolutely terrifying,” said Kaitlyn Mackert.

In April of 2017, Mackert was heading to her sister-in-law’s home when she was involved in a bad crash. At the time, she was eight months pregnant and had her 2-year-old daughter in the backseat.

They were driving toward South Washington when she was at the corner of Yegen Road and University Drive going north in the left lane.

She says that’s when a young girl heading to class at the University of Mary pulled out in front of her, off of Yegen.

She says both cars were totaled.

Mackert says she drives the road a few times a week and lives very close by and that there are frequent crashes because of the way the two streets oddly meet.

“It’s hard to crank your neck around to see who’s coming, going northbound,” Mackert said.

She says just a few days ago, there was another crash at the same location and again both cars were totaled.

Mackert says there is a stoplight at University Drive and Airway Avenue which is similar to the way Yegen is set up.

She says if Yegen had a stoplight like that, then traffic may flow more smoothly, and hopefully crashes would occur.

Mackert says she’s no professional but that would be her suggestion.

Bismarck City Engineer Gabe Schell says yearly, the city does traffic counts and looks into crash reports to see what decisions need to be made for different intersections and roads.

He says they look for solutions to better these areas whether it’s using federal money for improvements, informing the correct professional or doing partnerships for safety programs with the Department of Transportation.

“There are certain rules and regulations that we have to follow that are federal guidance and state guidance, to ensure that we’re putting traffic signals in the correct locations and not putting them at every single intersection that is out there,” said Schell.

He says Yegen Road is in their jurisdiction but there has not been an analysis made on their end or the DOT’s as far as he knows.

“It’s hard to drive by there. That was absolutely the worst accident I have ever been in. To have both of my children involved was absolutely terrifying. I just remember my airbag went off and I was able to look through my rearview mirror to see if my daughter was OK,” said Mackert.

She feels like when her children grow up and began to drive, they’ll face similar situations.

Mackert says the area is heavily patrolled so people tend to follow the speed limit, but going a little further to prevent crashes would ease her mind and others in the community.