The Oxford Police Department issued 46 tickets for a “corner cutting” violation were issued during the month of January. Multiple students received tickets specifically at the intersection of Anderson Road and Jackson Avenue.
A stoplight that once regulated the busy intersection has been removed, and now drivers have resorted to cutting through a nearby parking lot in order to cross onto Jackson Avenue because of the difficulty of making a left turn.
The code of ordinances for the City of Oxford lists the violation in Section 102-446, which prohibits using parking lots without the intention of coming to a full stop. Violation of this ordinance results in a ticket with a fine of $186.
Jeff McCutchen, major of operations at the Oxford Police Department, said the stoplight at the intersection of Anderson and Jackson was taken out a few months ago to ease the congestion of left lane traffic. He recommends drivers either be patient and wait for traffic to ease so that they can cross, or go to Heritage Drive and take a left to get to Jackson Avenue, rather than speed through the small strip mall parking lot.
“It’s illegal to cut through a parking lot to avoid an intersection,” McCutchen said. “You’ve got five or six businesses there and they’re concerned about their customers walking. The simple thing would be to look at a different avenue, because you don’t want to hit someone and you don’t want to have a wreck.”
With many UM students housing projects near Anderson Road such as The Hub, The Retreat and Lafayette Place, such an obstruction can negatively affect the daily commute for students.
Third-year law student Jonathan Gosnell said because the intersection is very rarely completely clear and there is no turn lane, the removal of the stoplight poses more of a problem than a solution to drivers.
Gosnell is not the only student speaking out about being affected.
“Anderson is the easiest route to campus or Park and Ride for me, and since the removal of the traffic light last spring, the intersection is frequently gridlocked,” Rachael Cooper, senior English major, said. “I didn’t realize that going through the parking lot in front of the Noodle Bowl and Firehouse Subs counted as cutting a corner, because I was still having to stop at traffic controls to proceed to Jackson Avenue.”
Just before 8 a.m. on January 28, Cooper pulled through the parking lot with another vehicle in front of her. Neither had reached the stop sign at the end of the parking lot before being flagged down by a police officer and told to pull over, cut their cars off and wait to be cited. They became two of 18 corner cutting tickets were issued in the Oxford area that day.
“There were about six other vehicles already stopped and being cited,” Cooper said. “I’ve never been ticketed for anything before, and had I known that counted as cutting a corner, I wouldn’t have done it.”
Cooper said she’d love for the Anderson Road traffic light to be put back, but understands that most likely will not happen.
“Regardless of what solution is taken, I do not think the city should enforce the tickets given out during their operations last week,” Gosnell said. “They are looking to profit off a bad situation they created in the first place, and the act of first making the intersection nearly unworkable and then heavily fining people for going through the lot out of necessity reeks of exploitation. If it’s really a matter of keeping order, then make it known that people on Anderson are best off detouring through Heritage.”
