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Dangerous Zone: Drivers Playing Game of Chicken at Local Intersection

Close Calls at 24th Street and Shell Point
Posted at 7:16 PM, Nov 18, 2016
and last updated 2016-11-18 19:16:41-05

The intersection of Shell Point and 24th in Ruskin is at the crossroads of chaos and confusion.

"Just really a hazardous situation," says Butch Newell who drives his daughter to nearby Lennard High School every morning.

Asked whether he's seen any close calls he says, "There have been plenty of close calls."

"Its just too confusing," says Newell. "It's just a matter of if the wrong person flinches at the wrong time, something bad is going to happen," he says.

Butch took to the skies to prove it. He shot drove video and within minutes you see two cars nearly collide.

The problem: this busy intersection is just a two way stop.

When the new 24th Street extension opened at the Shell Point intersection, county officials  did not make it a four way stop. Drivers we talked to say the intersection is too busy and two dangerous for just two stop signs.

"The traffic doesn't realize that its not supposed to stop," says Kim Livingston who pulled over just to talk to our camera crew out of concern that something needs to be done.

After we explained what we found to the Hillsborough County Public Works Department, they say they will take action.  They tell us they will do a traffic study next month. Meanwhile, they plan to add additional signs warning drivers that it's a two way stop.

But drivers say anything short of a red light or four stop signs is a recipe for a tragedy.