By Seth Leonard
sleonard@salisburypost.com
Two vehicles collided in front of Salisbury Motor Co. around 8:30 Thursday morning, the second accident at that intersection in less than a month.
A four-by-four Ford F-150 pickup truck was towing a trailer west on Innes Street when it ran into a Pontiac G6 sedan at the intersection with Craige Street, crushing the passenger side of the car and pushing it into a utility pole with such force that the car wrapped around the pole.
The Pontiac driver, 54-year-old Norma Peeler, was pinned in for nearly 40 minutes and suffered a broken pelvis. Salisbury Fire Department responders had to cut the woman free with tools that peeled back plastic and sheet metal. She was trapped between the dashboard, the telephone pole and the other side of the car, which was crumpled inward all the way to the driver’s side.
An ambulance took her to the hospital when helicopters were unavailable due to weather conditions.
The driver of the truck appeared uninjured, and the damage to his vehicle looked to be mostly scratches and dings. He was towing a trailer loaded with landscaping equipment belonging to Ketner’s Lawn Service, according to authorities.
A witness who was driving behind the truck said she saw its driver run through the red light at Innes and Craige.
“He ran the stop light,” she said. “He didn’t brake or anything. He plowed right into that woman.”
The witness said she did not want to give her full name because she didn’t want to jeopardize the accident investigation.
Peeler works at Salisbury Motor Co. and was on her way to work when the accident occurred. According to the dealership’s general manager, Donald Clement IV, she had called to complain a few weeks earlier about limited visibility at the intersection.
Clement said the intersection is dangerous, thanks in part to the speed limit.
“Speed limit is 35, so you know they’re going 45,” he said. Peeler, the driver of the Pontiac, had recently bought it from the dealership.
Clement said recent crashes at the site aren’t isolated incidents.
He said several of the dealership’s cars have been hit and even totaled over the years. He also said the telephone pole at the intersection has been hit multiple times. He blames the pole’s proximity to the curb and says most poles on that stretch of Innes Street are too close to the street.