DALE, Ind. (AP) – Highway officials are recommending the state's first-ever J intersection to address frequent crashes at a deadly southwestern Indiana intersection.

Since 2011, four fatal crash crashes and nine injuries have occurred at the intersection of Indiana 62 and U.S. 231.

Indiana Department of Transportation staffers met Thursday with Spencer County residents about four months after a retired local school official died in a crash at that intersection.

The Evansville Courier & Press reports (http://bit.ly/1EVRFod ) that INDOT recommends turning the intersection into a J intersection, also called a J turn.

That would prevent people from driving straight across U.S. 231 and would force them to turn right on 231, before they would travel a quarter of a mile and then make a U-turn. 

Motorists would then turn right onto Indiana 62.