Safety upgrades coming to Raleigh intersection where man and child died in fiery crash last summer

RALEIGH, N.C. (WTVD) -- Changes are coming to a dangerous north Raleigh intersection where a man and child were killed in a fiery crash last summer.

The NC Department of Transportation is installing traffic signals at the intersection of Louisburg Road/US 401 and Fox Road.

"It makes everybody else safer, but someone else had to die...be killed for them to put it out here," said Latria Graffam, who lives on the corner of 401 and Fox Road.

Graffam heard the collision last August in which Raleigh police said Francisco Jaquez and his girlfriend's 8-year-old son were killed when a car t-boned their vehicle while they were trying to cross the highway.

Graffam said she hears drivers slamming on their brakes and screeching tires so often, she avoids the intersection at all cost.

"I tell everybody I know and love I say, please do not take this way because if something happens, I will feel bad because I know how dangerous this road is," she said.

The NCDOT, which originally planned to install a more elaborate safety upgrade known as a Reduced Conflict Intersection or Super Street, said the public demanded a quicker fix.

The Super Street solution would have involved a concrete barrier in the median, forcing drivers to turn right onto 401, then make a U-turn farther up the road.

The project would've taken until 2020 to complete, but the NCDOT said people who turned out at a public meeting only days after that fatal crash last August, demanded traffic signals instead, which could be installed much sooner.

The lights are currently hanging from wood poles which will later be switched out for permanent metal poles.

A spokesperson for the NCDOT said final inspection and programming will happen this week and if approved, the lights will be operational by Monday.