After a heart-rending run-in with a fawn that scampered in front of her car on Wade Avenue Extension, Kathleen Payne noticed that the freeway in West Raleigh was becoming "a killing field for deer."

"What does it take to get DOT (or whoever) to post Deer Crossing signs?" Payne asked the Road Worrier in late November.

Sometimes, all it takes is a request to the right person.

In this case it was Steve Johnson, the state Department of Transportation traffic engineer for Wake and six other counties. Payne told him she had counted seven deer carcasses by the road since her mishap in July.

Johnson promised to investigate whether warning signs were warranted. They were. By the end of January, the first deer crossing sign had been posted on Wade Extension near Edwards Mill Road. It's a small sign that will be replaced when a larger one is available, he told her.

Payne had not expected such fast action from DOT.

"I give any bureaucracy a certain amount of delay factor in responding," said Payne, who commutes from Raleigh to a job in Research Triangle Park. "But no sooner do I e-mail this fellow than he e-mails me right back. That's responsiveness."

Johnson, based at DOT's Division 5 office in Durham, fields a lot of calls and e-mails from motorists concerned about balky stoplights, missing traffic signs and other road hazards. Sometimes, he is able to give them what they want.

"It's something that is needed, and we agree that it's needed, and we get it done," Johnson said. "Other times, we have to give them a negative response. Say, we can't lower the speed limit on a certain road."

State and city traffic engineers often learn about problems only when motorists report them.

"We're here in Durham," Johnson said. "It's difficult to know what's going on throughout our seven counties on some of these roads. Input from the public is very helpful to us."

After Valerie Cothran got Johnson's e-mail address, she let him know about a new North Raleigh traffic signal that "is driving me crazy." The signal on Falls of Neuse Road at Morrocroft Drive was out of sync with nearby intersections.

Now it's in sync.

"Sometimes after we put in a traffic signal, the timing needs a little more tweaking," Johnson said. "We had to go back and adjust it."

Cothran, whose office is nearby, was pleased with the results. "It has been much, much better mornings in the past week or so," she said by e-mail.

MaryAnn Pittman waited a lot longer to gripe about a traffic signal on St. Mary's Road in West Raleigh.

Every Sunday afternoon, she had to sit through four red-light cycles before she finally got a green arrow to turn left onto Wade Avenue. Nothing she did would make that red turn green.

"Thanks for allowing me to vent," Pittman said in a Feb. 12 e-mail to the Road Worrier.

"I've been wanting to complain about that St. Mary's / Wade Ave. light for 3 years!!! Who should I contact at City Hall?"

City Hall was the right address. H.P. Humphries, Raleigh's traffic signal system manager, told Pittman he would have someone look into it.

By the following Sunday, the problem had been fixed. Pittman drove up to the light, and she got a left-turn arrow right away.

She could not believe this simple miracle.

"If I had had time, I would have driven around the block and tried it again -- because it was so shocking," Pittman said. "I had never been able to do that. It was thrilling.

"I wish I hadn't waited so many years to complain."