ROSEVILLE, Mich. – A 14-year-old girl and her grandmother are in serious condition Monday night after getting into a crash with a school bus in Roseville.
The bus was carrying more than 30 Roseville Middle School students when it crashed with an SUV at the corner of 11 Mile Road and Groveland Street, just west of Gratiot Avenue.
Police said the bus driver and five or six students suffered minor injuries.
Since 2012, there have been 30 accidents on the stretch of 11 Mile Road between Gratiot and Groesbeck, not including Monday's bus crash. The state has evaluated the road and officials have said it's not too dangerous, but one neighbor is ready to go to jail to get some changes.
Jerry Tranchmontagne has lived on the stretch of 11 Mile Road for 27 years, and he said he's seen plenty of accidents -- some of them fatal.
"You can't travel on a road that's designed for 40 mph at 60-70 mph," Tranchmontagne said. "This isn't the freeway. The freeway is down there."
Tranchmontagne said he isn't surprised by the bus crash.
"It's just really dangerous," he said.
Other neighbors said the blinking yellow and red lights need to be turned into a four-way stop.
"If you don't sit and wait for 5-6 seconds at this red light, you don't know if you're going to make it through," Tranchmontagne said.
Monday's crash happened because the driver of the SUV ran the blinking red light, police said.
It took five hours to clean up the crash scene.
Tranchmontagne has voiced his concerns to authorities, but on Friday he received a letter from the Michigan Department of Transportation saying crash statistics don't support any action at the intersection. He disagrees, and is willing to take matters into his own hands.
"I will put cones out and flares and I will shut this road down with big signs," Tranchmontagne said. "I will have protestors out here. ... I will continue to shut it down until people stop getting hurt out here, killed out here."
Tranchmontagne said he's willing to go to jail to get the intersection changed.
The Department of Transportation has sent crews to look at the intersection, but Tranchmontagne thinks more qualified engineers need to examine it and find ways to slow the traffic.
What happened
A school bus crashed into an SUV Monday afternoon and slid off the side of the road in Roseville, police said.
Officers said the bus was heading east on 11 Mile Road when it collided with the SUV, which was heading southbound on Groveland Street and crossed into the intersection.
There were around 30 people on the bus. The driver and five or six children suffered apparent minor injuries, police said.
Two people inside the SUV were taken to a hospital in serious condition, the Roseville Fire Department said. The passenger is a 14-year-old girl and the driver is an older woman, police said.
The people in the bus were taken to another bus at the scene.
The intersection of eastbound 11 Mile Road and Groveland Street was blocked for several hours as police continued to investigate the crash.
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