SHINE — A two-vehicle collision at Paradise Road and state Highway 104, which sent three people to hospitals and put one in critical condition on Saturday, was the second wreck at that intersection in a little more than a week and one of many that have occurred there over the years.
A collision on Nov. 11 sent four people to a hospital, three of them children.
The state Department of Transportation has been planning a single-lane, metered roundabout at the intersection of Highway 104 and Paradise Bay-Shine Road since a study in 2019, saying that the intersection has a history of serious-injury collisions.
Failure to yield was the cause of both the Nov. 11 and Saturday’s wrecks, according to the State Patrol, which cited drivers who tried to turn onto Highway 104 from Paradise Road.
Marcus K. Daly, 76, of Port Ludlow was cited for failure to yield in Saturday’s collision. He was traveling southbound on Paradise Road when he entered the intersection with Highway 104 at 2 p.m.
His 1997 Lexus pulled in front of a Volkswagen van driven by Gerald M. Grady, 70, of Seattle, and Grady’s van struck the Lexus in the driver’s side, the State Patrol said in a memo.
Daly was taken to St. Michael Medical Center in Silverdale, the State Patrol said. He was not listed as a patient on Saturday.
Grady was taken to Jefferson Healthcare hospital in Port Townsend. He was treated and discharged.
Grady’s passenger, Elizabeth A. Bronson, 72, also of Seattle, was taken to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. She was in critical condition in the intensive care unit on Sunday, according to Susan Gregg, director of media relations.
Seat belts were worn by both Daly and Grady but not by Bronson, troopers said.
No drugs or alcohol were involved.
In the Nov. 11 wreck, a 77-year-old driver and two juvenile passengers, 12 and 14 years old, were taken to St. Michael Medical Center while a third juvenile passenger, 12 years old, was taken to Harborview after the car pulled in front of another vehicle, the driver of which was not hurt, the State Patrol said.
Neither alcohol nor drugs were involved in that wreck, the State Patrol said, adding that everyone wore seat belts.
DOT plans to install a $4.6 million roundabout at the intersection. It’s expected to begin construction in the spring and be open sometime next fall.
The intersection was ranked 12th in the state in terms of wrecks, according to DOT in 2019.
Nearly 17,000 vehicles and semis travel Highway 104 each day, coming off the Hood Canal Bridge into Jefferson County. Highway 104 is the only highway on or off the Olympic Peninsula.
In February 2019, DOT published a Intersection Control Evaluation that the roundabout “to improve the flow of traffic and reduce the potential and severity of head-on or serious injury collisions,” DOT said on its website at wsdot.wa.gov.
A request for input at a 2019 meeting elicited some 250 written responses. Among concerns expressed by residents was that a roundabout would slow traffic too much and that it would not make the intersection safer.
DOT engineers have said that roundabouts are safer than traditional stop sign or signal-controlled intersections.
