A crossing guard was taken away by ambulance after being struck by a car at his post at the corner of Branch Avenue and Markham Place in Little Silver this morning, redbankgreen has learned.
Little Silver police Sergeant Dan Shaffery says the guard’s injuries “appear to be minor and are not life-threatening.” The victim was taken to Monmouth Medical Center in Long Branch, he said.
Police are temporarily withholding the identity of the guard until his family can be contacted.
Information about the particulars of the accident, which was reported at 7:54a, were not immediately available, Schaffery said.
The accident is the second locally in less than a week in which a crossing guard was struck by a vehicle, and at least the fourth in the last year.
Karin Sidun, a member of a citizen’s advisory group on traffic safety issues in the borough, says the corner of Branch and Markham has been the subject of discussion “many, many times,” because the the volume of traffic on Branch has increased dramatically in recent years. She tells redbankgreen that a survey several years ago found 80,000 vehicles per week traveling on Branch.
“That’s a huge volume not to have a traffic light at that intersection,” she said. “Pedestrian crossing is very hard because of that volume.”
Requests for the installation of a traffic light have failed because it would require a widening of Branch, which would encroach on residential property, and other concerns, she said.
