After reading the articles about the two crashes within 24 hours at the intersection of North 16th and West Wells streets, I am curious why something hasn't been done about the intersection, and not just that, but with general traffic safety on campus. These are not the first accidents on campus I have heard of, and I am sure that there have been more and will continue to be more. I am a freshman, and I myself have seen cars rush through turns while pedestrians, including myself, were in the crosswalk, and while the pedestrians have the light. Besides that, pedestrians always have the right of way. That is something you need to know to get your learner's permit!

Now I do not know what should be done, but to start, maybe there should be tougher fines for speeding and disobeying other traffic laws around campus. Also, student drivers should be given paperwork of some sort with expectations of drivers around campus. I think that these things would help, but that would not be the end to this problem.

If what I have written accomplishes only one thing, I would hope it would be this: To make people aware of this problem and help to open up a dialogue on how to improve this situation.

This viewpoint was published in The Marquette Tribune on September 27, 2005.