Hazardous intersection threat to children

With relief, we learned Tuesday there should be no reason for elementary students to cross the busy intersection at Saliman Road and Robinson Street to get to their buses.

Credit goes to the Carson City School District and especially Superintendent Mary Pierczynski for wasting no time in checking out the potentially hazardous area early Tuesday morning after a couple of parents had voiced their concerns.

Actually, it was more than concern. On two occasions in two weeks, children and vehicles had collided in the intersection -- thankfully, with no serious injuries.

What Pierczynski discovered was few children were crossing the street unnecessarily on their way to the wrong bus stop. That got straightened out, and everybody should feel a bit safer at the situation.

Unfortunately, the Saliman and Robinson four-way stop remains a hazardous intersection for pedestrians, most of whom are Carson High School students.

The danger comes naturally to a four-lane intersection, because it's a relatively long walk from one curb to the other across a street that's often busy and, before and after school, is almost always a traffic jam.

Short of installing a traffic light or pedestrian-crossing light, all we can ask is for drivers to make sure they yield to pedestrians. Far too frequently we see antsy drivers not bother to wait for the walkers or, worse, simply roll through the stop sign with no regard for the potentially devastating consequences.

If drivers need further persuasion, the intersection would be an excellent spot for the next Carson City sheriff's or state highway safety crosswalk crackdown.

We'd much rather see a few dozen tickets written to inattentive motorists than to have a single student endangered.