Residents are hoping that new traffic signals on US 501 in South Boston at the entrance to Halifax Square Shopping Center will reduce crashes that, in just the past three years, have claimed the lives of two persons, left scores of others injured and caused damages to scores of vehicles.
Killed on July 27, 1998, was 85-year old Lightfoot Boyd Fourqurean of South Boston. She had been involved in a minor collision, had gotten out of her vehicle to inspect the damages and was struck and killed by a northbound vehicle.
Four months later on November 28, Carolyn Woody Williams, 56, of South Boston was killed when her car, while exiting from the south entrance to the shopping center, was struck by a southbound vehicle.
Traffic studies conducted in 1997 show total intersection volume in excess of 14,500 vehicles. In a 24-hour period, over 3,300 vehicles entered and existed Halifax Square Shopping Center at its south entrance alone. The bulk of that traffic occurred from 7 a.m. until 6 p.m.
Such studies measure not only the volume of traffic but any delays beyond what might be considered as normal, excessive speed, unusual maneuvers and a number of other driver moves that could be considered as unsafe.
The results of the traffic study was enough to support federal funding through the Hazardous Elimination Safety Fund which covers up to 90 percent of costs involved in approved projects. The Town of South Boston will bear the remaining costs.
Being installed at a cost of approximately $100,000, highway officials say that it was the concern of citizens within the community that lead to traffic studies and, ultimately, funding approval.
To facilitate safer entrance into the shopping center, northbound traffic will have left turn permissive protection from the left turning lane. Sensors installed in the pavement will monitor traffic on both the north and southbound lanes as well as vehicles attempting to exit the shopping center.
But will these traffic signals reduce the number of accidents at this intersection?
Hopefully, but not necessarily.
R.B. Moore, VDOT Assistant District Traffic Engineer, says statistics show that the installation of traffic signals do not always result in safer intersections.
"If you have angle accidents, it charges to rear ends," said Moore while noting that the Virginia Department of Highways does not install traffic signals to prevent accidents alone.
"From a traffic engineering perspective, it has to be very unusual," said Moore.
"In this setting, it may not be as bad," added Moore.

A resident's quick action probably prevented a late Tuesday afternoon fire at John Randolph Motor Inn from becoming worse, according to fire officials.
The fire began in a third floor apartment while its resident was in a downstairs laundry room. When the resident returned and opened the door to his apartment, he discovered his room ablaze and quickly closed the door before sounding the alarm.
"Shutting the door helped tremendously," said Steve Phillips, assistant chief of the South Boston Fire Department.
"It could have been worse."
According to Phillips, the time of day in which the fire occurred helped also in alerting the residents to evacuate.
Phillips guessed that $30,000 in damage resulted from the blaze, which was contained to one apartment on the third floor.
"It burned the contents of one room pretty bad, but, structurally, it didn't do a lot to the room, except for the plaster on the walls," Phillips said.
Phillips also said that there was some smoke damage in the hallway, resulting in the removal of some ceiling tiles.
Sgt. B.K. Lovelace of the South Boston Police Department, investigated the cause of the fire, and determined it was electrical in nature, with damage mostly contained to one room and a bathroom within a single apartment.

Dixie, Inc. came up empty Tuesday night in a pitch to the Halifax County Recreation Committee for a $10,000 appropriation for new backstops and fencing for baseball fields at the Day Complex.
Citing uncertainty over the county's overall budget, the recreation committee turned down the request from South Boston Dixie Youth Baseball head Buddy Wilborn.
"We want to help in any way we can but I don't think anybody knows what we're going to get," said committee chairman R.E. "Dickie" Abbott.
"I don't know what we're going to get from anything except what we get in local taxes. It's going to be a hurting on us."
"As far as I'm concerned, I'd like to help everybody," he added.
"We'll just have to look and see what we can do."
Committee member James Edmunds II acknowledged that the request from Wilborn was a legitimate request and reiterated Abbott's position.
"With the budgetary situation as it is now, we don't have the money," Edmunds said.
Wilborn told the committee that he would appreciate any financial help the body could see its way clear to offer.
"If you can't do it this year, I'd appreciate it if you would include it in your next year's budget," Wilborn said.
Prior to approaching the recreation committee, Wilborn went to the Board of Supervisors' finance committee.
That body, in turn, referred the matter to the recreation committee.
Wilborn told the recreation committee that the Town of South Boston was going to appropriate $10,000 toward the estimated $22,000 project.
The Dixie, Inc. official said that new backstops were needed as a safety issue.
He also said that the South Boston league is going to make a bid this weekend to bring the state Dixie Boys baseball tournament to South Boston this summer.
Wilborn pointed out that South Boston was the only league to make its interest known in staging the state tournament for 14-year-olds and that he knew of only one other league that was interested in hosting the state tournament for 13-year-olds.
In addition, Wilborn said the South Boston league is preparing to make a bid to host the Dixie Boys World Series for 13-year-olds in 2003.
The issue with the new backstops surfaced as big safety issue, Wilborn said.
With fields situated back-to-back and two games being played at the same time, not having adequate backstops on occasion results in fans being peppered by foul balls.
"That's one of the biggest complaints we had last year," Wilborn said.
"It (having new backstops and related fencing) will make the facility more desirable."

The Halifax County School Board will hold a special meeting Monday, April 2 to unveil a proposed 2001-2002 school budget.
That meeting will be held at 7 p.m. in the school system's administrative conference room on the first floor of the Mary M. Bethune Office Complex in Halifax.
It has only been over the past couple of weeks that school system officials have been able to get a handle on what the county may expect in state revenues.
As a result, the only thing school system officials had previously been able to do is to plug in its anticipated expenditures for the coming year, make a guess on local revenues and wait for the state revenue numbers to come in.
School system officials have consistently said that with no additional dollars from the state for teacher salary hikes, the 2001-2002 school budget will be a very tight and stressed budget.
Halifax County School Superintendent Dennis Witt has said it takes approximately $280,000 to provide each one percent pay hike.
He also said that it will take over $100,000 for the school system to provide its employees any sort of help with group health insurance premiums.
Halifax Education Association officials called upon the Halifax County School Board at its March meeting to provide a six percent salary hike and full funding of group health insurance premiums for the county's teachers next year.
The chances of that actually happening, however, are very dismal.
After breaking the state budget stalemate, Governor Jim Gilmore announced that he will not cut funding for K-12 education.
While the announcement that the governor will not cut funding for K-12 education was good news, the bad news was that there is no sign that any additional dollars will come into play.
School Superintendent Dennis Witt said recently he feels school system personnel need a three or four percent pay hike and assistance to cover the cost of group health insurance premiums.
However, without an increase in state funds and a significant increase from the county coffers, the bottom line may not be that good.

By BOB LEWIS
Associated Press Writer
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - Gov. Jim Gilmore accused a group of senators and their public relations firm of waging a campaign of distortions about spending cuts he imposed after the General Assembly failed to agree on budget amendments.
During his monthly radio show on the Virginia News Network, Gilmore denied sheriffs' claims that his budget cuts were forcing them to lay off deputies.
''There are no cuts in this balanced budget for sheriff's offices,'' Gilmore said Thursday. ''There's no hiring freeze in sheriff's offices. It's absolutely false.''
Sheriffs on Wednesday told the Senate Finance Committee subcommittee on public safety that because of a $53.5 million cut Gilmore made to the state compensation board, they cutting costs in their departments.
Thirty-four senators in both parties have formed a nonprofit educational corporation to promote their position that the state cannot afford to advance car tax relief from 47.5 percent to 70 percent this year as the economy weakens.
The organization hired Golin-Harris International, a Chicago-based public relations firm with an office in northern Virginia, to guide its public relations effort, including Wednesday's hearing in which about 230 sheriffs and deputies jammed into a 180-seat hearing room.
''The doctrine of the Republican Party has been blurred a little bit by the Senate Republicans,'' Gilmore said. The senators ''are just dead set on rolling back this car tax cut and hiring this Chicago PR firm to come out here and try to ... mislead the public, but the truth is the House Republicans and most of the House Democrats believe there should be this car tax cut,'' Gilmore told a caller.
State Sen. Malfourd W. ''Bo'' Trumbo, R-Botetourt, said he sees no harm in senators hiring a firm to educate people about the state's budget predicament and combat the governor's tax cut campaign funded by a Gilmore-controlled political action committee.
''It's ironic that they've got the No Car Tax PAC and a Web site with the governor's name on it and all the money that flows into that from who knows where and here we are just a few senators trying to scrounge up a little money from our own pockets,'' Trumbo said.
The Senate's budget would increase car tax relief to 55 percent this year and to 70 percent next year, when existing law calls for the tax to be eliminated on the first $20,000 of value on personal cars and pickup trucks. The House's budget plan called for the 70 percent cut this year, and Gilmore promised to veto any budget that fell short of that.
After legislators adjourned Feb. 24 without agreeing on the budget, Gilmore cut $421 million from the budget to avoid a shortfall.
On another topic, a caller from Prince George County took Gilmore to task for not proclaiming April as Confederate History Month as he had the past three years. Gilmore on Tuesday issued a proclamation calling for remembering the Union and Confederate Civil War sacrifices by Virginians.
''The governor can issue any proclamation he wants to issue. There's no obligation to either issue one or not issue one,'' he said. The proclamation ''was inclusive, and that's my policy. I'm the governor of the state, I issue the proclamations, and my policy is to bring this state together.''

Jeff Burton may be down.
But don't count him out.
To say that 2001 season has not been a good one for Jeff Burton is a huge understatement.
Burton heads into this weekend's race at Bristol in 35th place in the NASCAR Winston Cup Series points standings, some 200 points outside of the top ten.
The South Boston drivers's 18th place finish last weekend at Darlington was his best finish of the season.
It snapped a string of three straight finishes of 30th or worse.
"I'm almost embarrassed about the way we've put finishes in," Burton said during a stop Wednesday at Martinsville Speedway.
"At the same time, I'm as excited about my program as I've ever been. I think we have the right people. I think we have the right parts. I think we have the right chemistry."
The bad start, Burton says, has resulted from a variety of mistakes.
"We, as a company, have put the 99 program into a position that we shouldn't be in. But, we've done it together. It's been a collective deal."
The irony of it all is that the mistakes have come from the same people that put Burton into an annual contender for the Winston Cup title.
These are the people who helped him finish third in the NASCAR Winston Cup Series points race last season, that allowed him to finish in the top five in the points the last four years and made him a preseason favorite to win the Winston Cup title.
"We've just got to get it together," he said.
"I'm almost shocked where we are."
The South Boston driver says he is still upbeat and optimistic despite the disappointing start.
"I'm really not down about it," he said.
"I came to the conclusion years ago that the sun comes up in the morning, the moon comes up at night, you go home and your kids don't really care if you had a bad day or not, they're just glad to see you."
Burton says everybody tries as hard as they can but this is not the bottom line.
"It's an important thing that we do but it's not the most important thing in the world," he pointed out.
"I'm not going to freak out and panic just because we've had five bad races. What I'm going to do is try to fix it."
Just as Burton has not panicked, he says his team has not started to fray.
"Not one person has come to me and said 'we're really messed up,'" Burton said.
"Not one person has come to me and wanted to quit. Not one person has come to me and wanted to change everything.
"Everybody on my team understands that we've gotten ourselves into the position that we got ourselves in," continued Burton.
"No great forces out there did it to us. We did it ourselves. We've just got to go fix it."
Burton says there is still plenty of time, that there are plenty of opportunities left to get himself and the team back to where they should be.
"The way I look at it is that it's still real early in the first half and I've thrown the ball away five times, "Burton said.
"I've just got to go and get the ball back. We have a lot of opportunities to do that. We have more races than we've ever had which means we have more opportunities to gain points than we've ever had.
"We're down but we're darned sure not out."

Benson 'Ben' Miles Hawker, 84, of Exmore, died March 19 at Heritage Hall.
Mr. Hawker was born in Pittsylvania County, the son of James Henry Hawker and Mattie Murray Hawker and was married to Katherine Farmer Hawker. He was a member of Maranatha Baptist Church and was a self employed construction worker.
Survivors include his wife; three daughters, Virginia H. Swartz of Cox Mills, WVa., Carolyn H. Ginsberg of Norwalk, Ct. and Roberta H. Shankle of Richmond; one son, Michael B. Hawker of Melfa; three brothers, Robert Dudley Hawker, James Henry Hawker Jr. and Charlie Murray Hawker, all of Danville; 14 grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren.
Funeral services for Mr. Hawker will be held today, March 23 at 2 p.m. at Maranatha Baptist Church with the Revs. Chuck Cooper and Bill Charnock officiating. Burial will take place in Belle Haven Cemetery.

Ola Crowder Farmer, 90, of Culpeper, formerly of Scottsburg, died March 20.
Survivors include one daughter, Frances Ann Farmer of Richmond; three half-sisters, Virginia Seamster of Chesapeake, Doris Seamster of Danville and Irene Guill of Hurt.
Graveside services for Mrs. Farmer will be held March 23 at 2 p.m. in Forest Lawn Cemetery.
Those wishing to give memorials are asked to spend time with an elderly person instead.

Gathia Wagstaff (Tato) Dunn Sr., 67, of Ridgeway, died March 16.
Mr. Dunn was born in Halifax County on December 4, 1933 to the late Deacon Jesse Pat Dunn Sr. and Harriett McLaughlin Dunn. He was formerly married to Eunice Cheesebourgh and was a member of County Line Baptist Church. He was a veteran of the Korean Conflict.
His survivors include a song: Gatha Wagstaff Dunn Jr. of Illinois; daughter: Denise Harriett of Philadelphia, PA; six grandchildren; two great-grandchildren; five brothers: Johnny Dunn of Ridgeway, Jesse Pat (Peter) Dunn Jr. of Ridgeway, Earl Dunn of Capitol Heights, MD, William (Duck) Dunn of Manassas and Harry Lee Dunn of Clinton, MD and three daughters: Mary Morton of Richmond, Carrie Johnson of Ridgeway, Kessye Cargile of Lakewood, N.J.
A funeral service will be held Saturday, March 24 at 11 a.m. at County Line Baptist Church with the Rev. Otis Dillard officiating. Burial will be held in the Dunn Family Cemetery, Ridgeway. The family will receive friends at the church following the burial.
The family requests contributions be made to your local fire department.

Mary Kathryn Good, 80, of 1111 Wolf Trap Rd., South Boston, died March 21 at Halifax Regional Hospital.
Born in Halifax County on September 21, 1920, Miss Good was the daughter of the late Henry and Cora Brenneman Good. She was a member of Ebenezer Mennonite Church.
Her survivors include three sisters: Ruth N. Good and Lena F. Good of the home and Ina G. Stalter of Stuarts Draft. She was preceded in death by a brother: Louis H. Good and three sisters: Beulah I. Good, Elizabeth G. Brunk and Dorothy G. Brunk.
A funeral service will be held Saturday, March 24 at 10:30 a.m. at Ebenezer Mennonite Church with Pastors Nathan Good, Jerrel Good and John Risser. Burial will take place in the church cemetery.
The family will receive friends at Powell Funeral Home tonight from 7-8:30 p.m.
Those wishing to give memorials are asked to consider the Ebenezer Mennonite School, 1012 Tuck Airport Road, South Boston, VA 24592.