In May 2022, there was yet another serious crash at the intersection of North Decatur Road and Superior Avenue. Once again, a car blew through the red light and T-boned a vehicle.
Once again, a driver was rushed to the hospital.
Irene Kimball Sandler, a resident who lived nearby, took to Facebook to spout frustration: “I’m so sick of drivers running red lights! Especially this intersection.
“We live nearby and experience it almost every day.”
This turned out to be foreshadowing.
Two years later, on Mother’s Day 2024, Sandler and her daughter drove through that same intersection, attempting a left turn. A car driven by an elderly man ran the red light on North Decatur Road and slammed into their car.
Emergency crews used the Jaws of Life to remove them. Both mom and daughter were rushed to the hospital.
Irene’s skull was fractured, and her brain was swollen, said her lawyer, Chris Simon. Surgeons performed an emergency craniotomy, removing a section of the skull to relieve pressure on the brain. It took months of therapy for her to relearn how to walk and talk.
The lawyer said her injuries have changed her. She has headaches, focus and memory issues and is hampered in her ability to work as an architect.
Sandler sued this year, citing $1 million in hospital and medical bills and a loss of who she was as a full, functioning human being. She asked for $5 million, Decatur’s insurance limit.
Credit: Decaturish and Adam Francois Watkins
Credit: Decaturish and Adam Francois Watkins
Lawyers contend the city is very aware of the dangers at that intersection. They noted there have been scores of wrecks over the years, causing Decatur to call in engineers to study the dangerous location.
Engineers found a “geometry” problem with the road — a “downhill blind curve” and a four-lane road design that “encourages high vehicular speeds.”
They explored solutions like “advanced warning signals” and better signage, as well as plans like cutting the number of lanes on North Decatur Road in half and building a roundabout. Potential costs soared to $10 million. What makes it more complicated is DeKalb County maintains the road on both sides approaching the intersection.
Residents have long known the danger there. They call it the “killer intersection,” and some brave, but crazy, artistic soul once painted a huge, colorful skull and crossbones on the intersection’s pavement.
In fact, I personally know the dangers there.
In 2007, a car on North Decatur ran the red light and slammed into our minivan carrying my wife, myself and three of our kids. Fortunately, the impact was in the front quarter panel, and no one was badly injured, although the van was totaled.
The other driver was a doctor heading to work at Emory.
In the recent lawsuit, the city’s outside lawyers pushed back against Sandler. They contend Decatur is immune because of sovereign immunity, a legal doctrine that says a government cannot be sued without its consent.
Sovereign immunity has been described as “the king can do no wrong.”
Credit: Photo courtesy of Decaturish and Mike Hall
Credit: Photo courtesy of Decaturish and Mike Hall
Governments frequently duck behind this ancient legal axiom, even progressive burgs like Decatur, where one can barely drive a block without passing a “hate has no home here” sign.
A DeKalb County judge pushed back against the immunity claim and allowed the lawsuit to proceed. The city’s hired legal Hessians doubled down, bringing the case to the state appeals court.
They contend Sandler’s argument against Decatur is, at best, a case of “discretionary nonfeasance — not the kind of affirmative municipal conduct or extraordinary misfeasance required to state a nuisance claim.”
The city argues that taking actions like “redesigning an intersection, changing its geometry, relocating traffic signals, approving major roadway improvements” are “legislative and discretionary functions.”
That means that those are actions they maybe could do or even should do, but don’t have to do.
“Basically, the cities are saying: ‘You can’t touch us,’” Simon said.
The city responded to my questions in the usual way: it can’t comment on the active legal case.
The westbound (“blind hill”) approach to the intersection on North Decatur Road has a series of three signs and a digital device noting drivers’ speeds. These signs remain largely the same since our van got creamed in 2007, according to a review of Google Earth’s streetscapes.
Credit: Photo by Cindy Giver
Credit: Photo by Cindy Giver
(One sign has been augmented in recent years for a bit more visibility. And the digital speed device was added in 2018. But it was not working this week.)
On Thursday morning, I counted 12 westbound cars blowing the red light in 20 light revolutions. And this was 10 a.m., when people aren’t rush-hour frazzled.
I spoke with eight residents, and all mentioned the same worries Irene Sandler once expressed.
David Terry, who has lived nearby for 12 years, remembered hearing the Sandlers’ crash.
“I knew exactly what it was,” he said. He ran to the intersection and helped direct traffic until emergency crews came. He did the same thing for another accident four months ago.
“The part that (makes me mad) is that Decatur extracts a lot of taxes,” Terry said. “They brag about being inclusive and all that. They talk about (making the intersection safe). But they don’t do anything.”
I spoke with David Slagle, who has often cajoled and pleaded with city officials about this issue.
In 2019, he went online to write: “City of Decatur leaders, when the tragedy happens, and it will, you will not be able to say that you did not know, or the risk was acceptable, or there was nothing that could have been done to prevent it.
“I think it will be reasonable to blame you.”
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