Three crashes in just two days caused major back-ups at the US-127/I-496 interchange.
It's a stretch of highway state police say they're constantly getting called to for crashes and they say the road isn't the problem, it's the drivers.
It's an issue Bob Boris deals with almost every day, a highway that looks more like a parking lot.
"Half hour, 45 minutes just sitting out here," Boris said. "If you're not through here by 7:30 a.m. then forget it."
Boris says the crashes he sees tend to be the same thing.
"It slows down, then somebody doesn't see the person that slowed down in front of them, and then they smack them," he added.
State police say that's exactly what caused a crash during Wednesday morning's rush hour, there was rubbernecking from one crash that was already off on the shoulder and a driver didn't stop in time causing another crash.
"Maybe the driver wasn't as attentive as they should have been and they ended up rear-ending a car in front of them and that simply tells you that there wasn't enough space or enough time to react," said F/Lt. Joseph Thomas, the MSP Lansing Post Commander.
So far this year 88 crashes have been reported to the Office of Highway Safety Planning, with more than a hundred accidents being reported every year since 2011.
This year there have been 17 crashes involving injuries, with 20 people hurt. Last year there were 29 injury crashes, with 37 people hurt.
They're numbers F/Lt. Thomas says drivers can help lower.
"A lot of times we forget the rule of thumb that for every 10 miles an hour we're driving we should be at least 1 car length behind the vehicle in front of us," he noted. "Our eyes should be up ahead and looking forward anticipating potential problems, whether somebody is stopping or somebody is slowing down."
State police say the road is properly marked and they don't see a problem with the design. They also say the number of crashes reflect what they'd expect given the high volume of traffic that area gets.
M-DOT is tracking the crashes that happen along that stretch and tell us they haven't noticed a big increase, so they say it's premature to consider any changes to the road.
"Best thing to do is try to leave early enough," said Vernon Ford, who takes U.S. 127 to get to work. "You get stuck and then people are breaking so you kind of get the chain reaction."
