All-way stop signs come to rural Wake County crossroads. Here’s where and why.
Where Riley Hill and Lizard Lick roads meet in northeast Wake County, drivers on Riley Hill have always had the right-of-way.
That changes Tuesday.
The N.C. Department of Transportation will convert the intersection to a four-way stop.
Drivers on Lizard Lick have always had to stop, but now those on Riley Hill will, too.
The aim is to make the rural intersection north of Wendell safer. Statewide, NCDOT has converted more than 350 rural crossroads from two-way stops to four-way stops and says the number of crashes that kill or seriously injure people at those intersections drops significantly.
In one analysis, the number of people killed at intersections converted to all-way stops dropped from 81 before the change to zero.
The reason is that when drivers collide at all-way-stop intersections, they tend to be going slow, so no one gets seriously hurt or killed, according to Shawn Troy, NCDOT’s State Traffic Safety Engineer.
“So it really speaks to the reduced speed of the collisions,” Troy said in an interview last winter. “When you have a crash and someone’s going 55 and another person is just pulling out of an intersection, those crashes tend to be severe.”
The speed limit on Riley Hill Road is 45 mph, though drivers often go faster. Lizard Lick Road comes in at an angle that forces many drivers to look over their shoulders to make sure no one is coming. Now everyone will have an easier time seeing each other as they come to a stop.
Last year, 113 people were killed in car crashes in Wake County, five fewer than in 2022 but more than the five-year average of 99, according to the Division of Motor Vehicles. The number of people injured in crashes in Wake grew about 7% last year to 11,949.
