HANCEVILLE — The Alabama Department of Transportation (ALDOT) is considering changes at the intersection of Edmondson Road and Alabama Highway 91 in Hanceville, less than a week after the most recent in a years-long string of fatal accidents.

ALDOT Director John Cooper visited the city over the weekend, following a Jan. 4 accident that claimed the life of 74-year-old Burshel Eugene Boatrite of Crane Hill. Boatrite was ejected from his vehicle and died following a collision with an 18-wheeler at the intersection.

Hanceville Mayor Kenneth Nail said the fatality is only the latest death in a succession of accidents at the intersection in recent memory.

“Oh yes, this is definitely not the only one,” he said. “I know of three who’ve gotten killed there just in the time that I’ve been around. Back through the years, if you ask people who’v lived in Hanceville a long time, you’ll hear about many more.”

ALDOT’s visit hasn’t yielded a commitment from the highway department about what type of traffic controls or changes may be introduced at the intersection. But Cooper pledged to inform the city of its plan by the end of the week, according to Nail.

“Mr. Cooper and I talked, drove to the intersection and looked at it — but he didn’t commit on anything except to say that they will do something, and that we’d know what it is sometime this week,” said Nail.

Possible changes discussed so far include installing a caution light, or stop signs, or placing a concrete barrier. Nail, along with various city council members over the years, have said installing a red light — while not necessarily a popular move among many hurried drivers — would be the safest solution.

That’s unlikely, though, as ALDOT has indicated no interest in setting a traffic signal along an already-busy stretch of road. The city maintains a diligent police presence to mitigate the most egregious of speeding offenders, he added.

“We’re not pulling people over for going barely above the speed limit or anything at all like that, but our police officers stay pretty active in working that road,” he said. “Despite some of the just plain wrong things that some people say on social media, the commercial trucks that come through there, by and large, aren’t speeding through or creating the hazard.

“The important thing for people to realize is that, if the City of Hanceville could have done anything to fix this, we absolutely would have done it a long time ago. It’s the state’s decision; it’s not ours. Highway 91 is completely under ALDOT’s control. I’ve gotten so accustomed to ALDOT promising this or that, and then hearing nothing back from them, but I’m hopeful that we’ll see more than that, this time around.”