The car’s windshield had spider-web cracks. Long, dark hair was embedded in it.

Flip-flops had flown off their owners’ feet and landed in the road.

Two college students with head injuries, one of which were grave, went from St. Paul’s Snelling Avenue to the hospital in ambulances.

A driver sat on the curb, looking as if he was in shock.

The life-changing collision in May between a car and two pedestrians near Macalester College was similar to a crash last week that critically injured an 11-year-old boy as he walked to school in St. Paul.

In both cases on multi-lane roads, it appears one vehicle stopped for pedestrians, but another car traveling in the same direction did not.

The scenario is called a multiple-threat crash, said Melissa Barnes, Minnesota Department of Transportation pedestrian and bicycle safety engineer. There’s not definitive data in the state about how often they happen, but many drivers and pedestrians have been in situations that could have ended in such a collision.

“The problem is, one car will stop for a pedestrian and the other car really isn’t sure why that vehicle is stopped,” Barnes said. “They might think the car is stopped to take a turn or to let a passenger out. The other (driver) might not process, ‘Oh, there’s a pedestrian coming’ because the pedestrian is basically screened by the other car. As the pedestrian continues across the road, they don’t necessarily stop and peek out from the car to make sure the coast is clear.”

RICE STREET ‘OFF-THE-CHARTS BUSY’

Some discussion about decreasing these crashes focuses on engineering and education. MnDOT is working with other agencies to teach elementary-school students about crossing the road safely, Barnes said. Macalester added more emphasis to pedestrian safety during orientation for freshman and transfer students this fall.

St. Paul City Council Member Amy Brendmoen, who represents the area where 11-year-old Bikram Phuyel was injured Monday on Rice Street, said she will meet with the city’s interim public works director this week to discuss traffic-calming ideas.

Within blocks of Rice Street, there are four schools, three parks and a library, Brendmoen said. And while it’s always been a busy street, construction on Interstate 35E has led to more drivers using the road and it’s “been off-the-charts busy and off-the-charts fast,” she said.

Bill Lindeke, a St. Paul Planning Commission member, thinks converting four-lane roads like Rice Street to three lanes can prevent multiple-threat crashes.

He wrote a post for the Streets.mn blog, “Four-Lane Death Roads Should Be Illegal,” after Bikram was injured, saying it’s relatively cheap to convert a road to three lanes — one lane of travel in each direction and a middle lane for turning — and it makes them safer. Brendmoen said that’s one idea she wants to look at for Rice Street, and is open to others.

Ramsey County Public Works is not currently considering converting Rice Street (Ramsey County 49) to three lanes, said Public Works Director Jim Tolaas. That doesn’t mean the topic is off the table, though.

After a serious crash, the county’s Public Works staff typically reviews the investigation’s outcome and “may then take actions such as visiting the intersection, re-observing the conditions in the context of the investigation outcome, collecting traffic data, etc.,” Tolaas said. “This could result in recommendations for engineering changes.”

PEDESTRIAN ‘FLEW BACKWARD’

Dr. Tim Wood, who witnessed the collision between a Volkswagen Jetta and the two Macalester students, said it was “quite violent.”

“One student was … struck and flew backward and landed right on her head,” said Wood, an internal-medicine physician who got out of his car to help. “You could see she was unconscious immediately.”

Wood had been driving south on Snelling Avenue when he said a sport utility vehicle in front of him abruptly braked, and he did the same, as two young women entered the crosswalk at Lincoln Avenue about 3:25 p.m. May 27.

The Jetta was also heading south, in the next lane over, and struck the students as they crossed. The driver, Manolete Yanez, estimated he’d been traveling 30 to 35 mph and told police he hadn’t seen the pedestrians because the vehicle in the right lane had blocked his view of the right side of the crosswalk, a police report said.

A breath test showed Yanez, 35, had no alcohol in his system. Yanez didn’t return a call seeking comment.

Diouf, 19, later told police the SUV stopped in the right lane, the driver “waved” them through, and she “felt a bump and woke up about three meters down the street,” a police report said.

Alan Milavetz, an attorney representing Diouf, said the young women were rightfully in the crosswalk.

CASE CLOSED

A police investigator learned June 18 that Sowinta Kay, 20, had regained consciousness. Hospital staff told him her head injuries caused her difficulty in speaking, a police report said.

Kay, who also suffered broken bones, is home in Cambodia as she recovers, said Jim Hoppe, Macalester’s dean of students. She plans to return for the spring semester, he said.

Diouf is studying at Macalester again. Milavetz said she was badly hurt and is still receiving medical treatment. She incurred significant medical bills and plans a lawsuit against the driver, Milavetz said.

An assistant St. Paul city attorney declined to file charges against Yanez in August. Laura Pietan, deputy city attorney for the criminal division, said she typically reviews cases involving deaths or serious injuries, and she examined the Yanez case after a Pioneer Press reporter inquired about it last week.

Pietan said she agreed they didn’t have sufficient evidence to prove a misdemeanor charge of a driver failing to yield to a pedestrian, based on witness accounts and the investigator’s statement that he couldn’t “determine if a reasonable driver would have been able to stop to avoid a collision with Kay and Diouf.”

MOST PEDESTRIANS HIT IN OCTOBER, NOVEMBER

In Minnesota last year, there were 35 pedestrians killed and 867 injured, according to the Minnesota Department of Public Safety. During the past five years in St. Paul, 18 pedestrians were killed and 749 were injured, DPS says.

October and November were the most dangerous months for pedestrian crashes in the state last year. Barnes, the MnDOT pedestrian and bicycle safety engineer, said she thinks that’s because it’s not too cold to keep pedestrians on the street, but drivers have fewer daylight hours.

It was before sunrise Monday when Bikram was crossing the street and struck shortly after 7 a.m. He was accustomed to the short walk from his family’s apartment to Washington Technology Magnet School, where he’s a sixth-grader, his family has said.

Two cars were northbound on Rice Street when one slowed to stop for the boy in the area of Hoyt Avenue. The other driver, apparently not realizing why the first car was stopping, went around and struck the boy, a police spokesman has said. Police said Bikram had severe head injuries; a cousin said he was in a coma after surgery.

The 23-year-old driver was not impaired and not cited at the scene, police said. Police said they continue to investigate, including looking into the car’s speed and where the boy was crossing.

Minnesota law says pedestrians must obey traffic-control signals when they’re present. At intersections with no stop signs or traffic lights — the case at Rice and Hoyt, and Snelling and Lincoln — drivers must stop for pedestrians who are crossing, regardless of whether there is a marked crosswalk.

In pedestrian crashes last year, 35 percent were attributed to drivers not yielding to pedestrians, 21 percent to driver inattention/distraction, and 9 percent to obscured vision. Three percent were attributed to a driver’s improper/unsafe lane use and 0.5 percent to improper passing/overtaking.

SOLUTION: CHANGE 4 LANES TO 3?

Lindeke, the St. Paul planning commissioner, says the main problem with shoehorning four lanes of traffic onto a narrow, urban street is vehicles move at different speeds, weaving around one another.

He said he’d like to see St. Paul converting more four-lane streets to three lanes because it results in cars not driving as fast. “You don’t have this problem, what put this kid in the coma, where one car stops for somebody and the one behind it passes him,” Lindeke said.

John Maczko, St. Paul city engineer, says the city has been a leader in the Midwest in converting roads from four lanes to three and they’ve found it improves safety overall, but making the change is not without controversy.

In St. Paul, roads with more than 15,000 vehicles traveling on them daily aren’t good candidates because that can lead to traffic congestion and backups, Maczko said. Rice Street, in the area of Hoyt Avenue, has average daily traffic of about 15,000 vehicles, he said.

Closer to Macalester, where the students were injured in May, a pedestrian-activated, flashing light system is to be installed soon — something that Tom Welna, director of the High Winds Fund at the college, has been advocating. The fund also installed pedestrian flags at the intersection. Other groups in St. Paul have begun using such flags or are preparing to.

Still, Welna said there’s much to be done to improve pedestrian safety.

“These individual incidents spread out over time make it difficult to see the big picture, which is people are getting seriously injured and in some cases killed at intersections in St. Paul and we haven’t done enough,” he said.

Mara H. Gottfried can be reached at 651-228-5262. Follow her at twitter.com/MaraGottfried.

Safety tips

Melissa Barnes, MnDOT pedestrian and bicycle safety engineer, advises:

Pedestrians: Pause at the end of a stopped car, before you walk into the next lane of traffic, to look around and make sure the coast is clear. Do the same when walking past a parked car. “Where you can’t see around it, you need to be making sure that nobody is coming,” Barnes said.

Drivers: When stopping for a pedestrian, leave a buffer of about 20 feet between your car and a crosswalk. This gives space for drivers in other lanes to see that a pedestrian is crossing.

Drivers should “be aware that when one car stops really fast in the lane next to you, it may be for a really good reason and because a pedestrian is coming,” Barnes said.

Police trying to solve two cases

St. Paul police are looking for the public’s help to solve two hit-and-run cases from last autumn.

Tracy Klotz, 53, had just gotten out of her car in the 700 block of Randolph Avenue on Nov. 1, 2013, and was struck by a vehicle outside her driver’s-side door about 6:40 p.m. She was killed.

Police said a right side-view mirror cover found at the scene came from a 2001 to 2006 silver Lexus LS 430 four-door sedan, which may have been the vehicle involved.

On Oct. 3, 2013, Wade Souster was found lying in the median of Phalen Boulevard near Atlantic Street about 4 a.m. after he was hit by a vehicle. Souster, 32, was blinded in one eye and sustained a brain injury.

Police asked anyone with information about either case to call them at 651-266-5722.