A 65-year-old Wilmington man has died after being struck by a vehicle while trying to cross North Kerr Avenue near Market Street just before midnight, at an intersection with a long history of serious crashes. Clifford Smith was hospitalized with injuries from the collision and later died, with the medical examiner's office notifying police on August 30 that he had succumbed to his injuries.
According to a Wilmington Police Department news release, Smith was attempting to cross North Kerr Avenue from east to west shortly before midnight on August 19 when he entered the roadway without activating the pedestrian crossing signal. At the time, a green left-turn arrow was active, allowing vehicles traveling from Market Street to turn left onto North Kerr Avenue, according to Port City Daily. Wilmington police officers had responded to the intersection for a vehicle-versus-pedestrian collision just before midnight that night.
The department's traffic unit determined the driver involved will not face charges. Under North Carolina General Statutes § 20-172 and § 20-174, pedestrians are legally required to obey pedestrian control signals and yield the right-of-way to oncoming vehicular traffic when crossing outside of active pedestrian signals or marked crosswalks, according to Connect NCDOT guidance on the statutes. Investigators appear to have cleared the driver on that legal basis, since Smith had entered the roadway without the signal activated.
A Notoriously Dangerous Junction
The corner where Smith was hit is not an anonymous stretch of roadway. Data compiled by personal injury firm Meirowitz & Wasserberg shows the intersection of Kerr Avenue and Market Street ranks among the highest-crash intersections in Wilmington, logging 176 vehicular collisions in recent multi-year records prior to 2024. That crash volume places the junction squarely within a pattern local planners have flagged for years.
A 2023 report on the Walk Wilmington Plan update found that half of all pedestrian and bicyclist crashes in Wilmington occur on just 10% of city streets, with Market Street and Kerr Avenue named among the highest-risk priority corridors, per Port City Daily. A separate 2025 analysis by WHQR of North Carolina Department of Transportation crash data spanning 2007 through 2023 found that Market Street alone accounted for 13 pedestrian and bicyclist fatalities, representing 18% of all non-motorist traffic deaths citywide over that 16-year stretch.
City's Vision Zero Push Still Unfolding
Wilmington's city council adopted a Vision Zero policy framework last September, setting a goal of eliminating all traffic fatalities and severe injuries across the city by 2036. As part of that capital planning effort, the city has proposed a 0.7-mile multi-use path along Kerr Avenue meant to give pedestrians a separated route between UNCW, College Road, and commercial areas north of Market Street. Whether that path, once built, would have changed the calculus at this particular crossing near midnight remains an open question.
The socioeconomic dimension of the city's pedestrian safety problem is also stark. A study by transportation consulting firm Alta, cited by Port City Daily in 2023, found that 91% of pedestrian crashes in Wilmington occurred in census tracts where poverty rates exceeded the county average of 11.9%. Reporting from Port City Daily in September 2025 noted that nine people were killed in Wilmington traffic crashes during the first nine months of that year, six of them pedestrians and one a bicyclist.
Statewide, the trend line points in the wrong direction too. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration data reported by WHQR in August showed North Carolina recorded roughly 1,659 traffic deaths in 2024, about a 6% increase over 2023. Smith's death adds another name to a local and statewide count that city officials have pledged, but not yet managed, to bring to zero.
