PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Police are investigating a fiery crash that killed two people on North Broad Street very early Tuesday morning and shut down traffic for hours.
By 7:30 a.m., the last pieces of wreckage had been hauled away from the southbound side of the intersection at Broad Street and Hunting Park Avenue, and traffic resumed in both directions.
Police said the accident happened around 1:42 a.m. A preliminary investigation revealed that a Mercury Milan traveling northbound on Broad Street crossed into the southbound lanes and collided with a 2012 blue Toyota Rav-4. After the impact, the Milan caught fire, making it unidentifiable. Fire responders eventually put the blaze out. The drivers of both cars were pronounced dead at the scene.
Debris was scattered across Broad Street for the better part of the morning. The Milan remained in the middle of the intersection, the trunk popped open and the front end completely smashed — while the Rav-4 ended up about 50 feet away near the Sunoco gas station, the front end crumbled, the windows shattered.
Seeing the damage and hearing about the loss of life had a worker at the Walgreens there shaken up.
“Me coming to work, I was wondering why I had to come all the way around — and to see this bad accident. That’s why we all have to pray before we get up and leave early in the morning, because you’re here today and gone today,” she said.
Broad Street is now the most dangerous road in the city, since speed cameras went in along Roosevelt Boulevard in 2020. The cameras are credited with reducing speeding by 95% and cutting pedestrian crashes in half.
Chris Puchalsky, director of policy and strategic initiatives at the city's Office of Transportation and Infrastructure Systems, says there were 189 fatal or serious-injury crashes on Broad Street from 2018 to 2022.
Expanding on the success on Roosevelt Boulevard, earlier this month, a Philadelphia City Council committee advanced a bill permitting speed cameras on Broad Street, as well.
Exactly where the cameras will go has yet to be decided.
The bill will get to the full council in time for a vote before the summer recess.
KYW Newsradio's Pat Loeb contributed to this report.