From Staff Reports 

 Asheville’s crossing at Patton Avenue and New Leicester Highway is one of the nation’s 12 most dangerous intersections, according to TIME Magazine.

The nation’s most dangerous intersection is where Knights Road crosses Street Road in Bensalem, Penn., TIME reported. That crossing had seven fatal accidents in 10 years.

The Pennsylviana intersection is in a commercial corridor in Bucks County, fringed by a Subway sandwich shop and a gas station, not too far from a Kohl’s.

It’s plagued by poor signage, dim, lighting, discontinuous sidewalks, aggressive drivers and jaywalkers, according to a 2008 traffic audit. In a one-mile stretch of Street Road that includes the intersection, there were 144 crashes in the two years leading up to the audit, and 170 people died or were injured.

“It’s a lot of volume,” Joseph Fiocco, a traffic engineer who helped author the audit, said of the Pennsylvania intersection. “The more traffic that’s crossing and the more pedestrians and bicycles there are, the more likely accidents are.” More than 36,000 vehicles, including buses that carry some 500 people a day, travel on Street Road daily.

That intersection narrowly beat out Patton Avenue-New Leicester Highway’s crossing, which recorded six fatalities in 10 years, TIME noted. Two five-lanes converge at the crossing, which is generally considered busiest between 4 and 7 p.m.

Between 24,000 and 45,000 cars per day cross the Asheville intersection, according to the North Carolina Department of Transportation.

“The fact Time has listed the location as one of the deadliest in the nation could now bring more attention to the ongoing problems,” Asheville’s WLOS-TV said of the crossing of Patton Avenue and New Leicester Highway.

Eleven other intersections including Asheville’s were listed as runners up. The magazine and msn.com reported the findings in September, based on National Highway Traffic Safety Administration data.

Time Magazine analyzed the most recent fatal accident data available up to 2012. The report examined the number of fatal accidents happening within 150-feet of each other. 

State Highway Patrol Trooper Kelly Rhodes was quoted by the Asheville Citizen-Times as saying, “Slowing down and realizing you have two, five-lanes converging right there” is important for drivers to understand.”