Just before 9 p.m. on May 25, a woman traveling southbound on Palisades Boulevard rolled through the intersection at Palomino Boulevard/Eagle Ridge Drive and collided with an eastbound vehicle with three people inside.

Witnesses reported the southbound car was traveling about 40 to 45 miles per hour at the time of the accident.

The incident caused some residents in the neighborhood to pause and wonder whether the intersection with a four-way stop was as safe as it could be.

The intersection is a fairly busy one with more than 6,500 vehicles per day traveling through it in each direction.

The last traffic counts were done in 2010, but there are strong indications there has been no significant increase in traffic; in fact, the numbers may be lower. Counts from 2008 to 2010 did go down.

The Palisades/Palomino intersection is a four-way stop, and Sheriff’s Office officials in Fountain Hills say they don’t believe it is a particularly dangerous one.

Town Development Services Director Paul Mood said the town has never had a reason to do a warrant study on the intersection, so he does not know whether it would meet the requirements for a lighted traffic signal.

To determine whether a traffic signal is warranted the town would hire a traffic engineering consultant to do a study.

The investigation considers nine items to determine criteria, of which crash experience is just one.

Intersections

The town provided a report on traffic accidents at various intersections in town from 2008 through 2012. The list included the top 20 intersections for accidents, and Palisades and Palomino/Eagle Ridge was not on the list.

Farther south, at Palisades and Shea boulevards, there have been a total of 37 collisions over the five-year period, making it the top intersection in Fountain Hills for accidents. That is an average of 7.4 per year.

The top six intersections for accidents all have traffic signals and together average 5.2 accidents per year.

This group includes four along Shea Boulevard, three along Palisades including its intersection with Shea. The others are Shea and Saguaro, Shea and Eagle Mountain, Fountain Hills and Palisades, Shea and Fountain Hills and Palisades and Saguaro.

The most collisions at a four-way stop are at Palisades and La Montana Drive.

A longer version of this story appears in the June 19 edition of The Times.