State transportation officials didn’t need to hear about another accident on U.S. Highway 59 to know the rural highway between Lawrence and Ottawa rates among the most dangerous in Kansas.

But a three-vehicle collision Thursday afternoon offered a dire but all-too-familiar reminder of why officials want to curb U.S. 59’s dangers by building a new $200 million freeway nearby.

Lawrence-Douglas County Fire & Medical personnel tend to one of the people injured in a three-vehicle accident south of Lawrence on U.S. Highway 59 at Douglas County Road 458. The accident, which occurred shortly before noon Thursday, sent five people to area hospitals.

“Safety’s been the consideration all along, and that’s what the improvements are going to do, is make this a safer road,” said Marty Matthews, spokesman for the Kansas Department of Transportation.

“The timing of this is coincidence, and it’s an unfortunate coincidence, but it just underscores the need for making improvements to the road,” he added.

KDOT will conduct a public hearing for the U.S. 59 project from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday in the cafeteria at Baldwin High School, 415 Eisenhower St.

Officials will be available to answer questions and accept comments about KDOT’s plans for building the new four-lane freeway between Lawrence and Ottawa, either 300 feet east of existing U.S. 59 or a mile east.

“We are really wanting folks to get with us on this one, to tell us what they think,” Matthews said.

The U.S. 59 project has drawn criticism for its possible location, size, alignment, cost, design and other matters. But few have questioned its need.

From 1995 to 1999, the 18-mile stretch of highway had 376 accidents that left 193 people injured and 11 dead, according to KDOT. That translates to an accident every 4.9 days, an injury every 9.5 days and a fatality every 5.4 months.

Five people were injured in Thursday afternoon’s crash at the intersection of U.S. 59 and Douglas County Route 458, about two miles south of Lawrence.

A little more than four months earlier, on Christmas Eve, a similar crash killed one man and injured two others.

William Lassman escaped injury in that accident, though the corner of his pickup was clipped from behind while he waited to turn east onto Route 458.

Two trucks sit in the middle of U.S. Highway 59 after a three-vehicle accident Thursday south of Lawrence.

“I feel fortunate. If he’d hit me just two inches more to the center, that would have put me right in the middle of it,” said Lassman, who lives a half-mile from the intersection. “It was like, ‘Wham!’ two cars going up in the air, about 20 feet in front of me.”

Since the accident, Lassman no longer turns left from U.S. 59 onto Route 458. He figures it’s safer to use the right-turn lane and head west away from his house before turning around and waiting to cross both lanes of U.S. 59 traffic from behind the protective calm of a stop sign.

“You sit there for maybe 30 seconds, but that’s better than to sit out there in the middle and be an open target,” Lassman said. “I’ve been trying to get the state to do something. I don’t know what can be done, but they need to do something.”