The intersection at Bradley and Marksheffel roads where a mother and her 10-year-old son died Friday in a crash, has had 30 wrecks and three fatalities since Colorado Springs added a traffic signal in 2006, police records show.

Ten of the crashes in those 8 1/2 years involved only one vehicle, and there were no injuries in 27 of the wrecks, records show.

That’s a reasonable crash rate, city officials said, noting that right-angle crashes decreased after the intersection was annexed into the city and the signal light was added.

As a four-way-stop, there were an average of three right-angle crashes per year from 1998 to 2006 at the intersection; the highest number of wrecks was seven in 2004, according to city traffic records. Since the rest-in-red traffic signals were installed, the numbers dropped to one in 2007, none in 2008 and 2013, and two every year from 2009 to 2012.

“Accidents have been reduced while traffic volumes continue to increase,” said city traffic technician Bryan Curtis. “The intersection of Marksheffel and Bradley is the only one in Colorado Springs that rests in red. It is a unique intersection due to the rural nature and low traffic volumes.”

But that unique signal pattern – the light is red in all directions until traffic approaches – is at the heart of the investigation into the cause of Friday’s crash that killed Kimberly Mears, 50, and her son Raley.

According to a preliminary review of the signal controller’s log, said city senior traffic manager Kathleen Krager, the lights were “not operating normally around the time of the accident.” But it was not clear what was abnormal or if it occurred before, during or after the crash.

“The intent of the rest-in-red is to get motorists to slow down as they approach the intersection, rather than speed up to try and make a green light,” Curtis explained. “This configuration to slow traffic approaching the intersection has significantly reduced accidents.”

No new details have been released about Friday’s crash, which happened shortly before noon when Mears’ Ford Mustang, westbound on Bradley Road, plowed into a Dodge pickup going south on Marksheffel Road, according to police.

On Wednesday, the driver of the pickup was listed in stable condition at an area hospital, police said.

In the only other fatal wreck at the intersection, 17-year-old Noelle Pearl Fleming, a Mesa Ridge High School junior, died on Feb. 13, 2007, when the car in which she was a passenger turned into the path of an oncoming pickup truck.

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