Thread: She died crossing the Littlestown square that she sought to make safer | Rebecca Funt

She died crossing the Littlestown square that she sought to make safer

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/...085608857.html

Harrison Jones, Hanover Evening Sun
Mon, March 16, 2026 at 1:56 AM PDT
12 min read

As Littlestown Police Chief Charles Kellar put it, Rebecca Funt "did everything right."

On the morning of Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2026, Funt arrived at Littlestown's center square, and she pushed the pedestrian crossing button. She paused, waiting for the crossing signal to turn on.

The crossing signal activated, and she began to cross King Street, staying in the center of a marked crosswalk.

"I know she was careful like that," Kellar said.

Almost seven seconds after she began to cross, and more than halfway across the road, Funt was fatally struck from behind by a pickup truck as it made a left-hand turn, Kellar said.



A memorial is seen along East King Street, on Friday, Feb. 6, 2026, at the center square of Littlestown Borough. Rebecca Funt, 44, was killed on Feb. 4, 2026, while crossing the square as a pedestrian, according to the York County Coroner's Office.

MoreDespite her due diligence, and despite the traffic signal reportedly meeting the state and federal standards, less than an hour after she stepped onto King Street, Funt, 44, was pronounced dead at a local hospital.

"There was nothing that Rebecca did that can even be construed as being her fault," Kellar told her family.

Rebuilding her independence
When Rebecca Funt moved to Littlestown, as recalled by her sister, Mary Fishel, Funt sought to take back a small amount of the independence that she had lost as her vision faded.

Funt had been diagnosed with a degenerative eye disease and glaucoma, which ultimately progressed to a loss of vision that left her legally blind, and led to the loss of her ability to drive.
Within the aptly-named small Adams County borough of Littlestown, Funt found a walkable community. Here, she could walk to many of the places she needed to go: the library, the grocery store, the bank, her children's school.

As a transplant originally from the other side of the Mason-Dixon Line in Hampstead, Md., Funt had quickly fostered her own community in Littlestown, and volunteered her time to support the Littlestown Area School District that her two children attended.

Remembered as a loving and devoted mother, she was known to be a consistent sight at her children's sporting events and school functions, with family recounting in her obituary that she could often be found "cheering loud enough for everyone at the event to hear."



Rebecca Funt, 44, of Littlestown.

In her free time, she served as the "dedicated and passionate" volunteer secretary of the Alloway Creek Elementary School's Parent-Teacher Organization, and took on additional responsibilities for her most beloved PTO event, the school's Holiday Shoppe.

"Rebecca lovingly oversaw the thousands of gifts that were wrapped and prepared each year, ensuring that every child experienced the magic and excitement of shopping for loved ones during the holiday season," the organization wrote in memory of Funt.

"Her care, organization and enthusiasm helped make the Holiday Shoppe a cherished memory for so many."

As Fishel recalls, during their childhood, Funt and her four siblings learned the importance of safety from the kitchen table stories of emergencies handled by her father, a volunteer firefighter and paramedic. From their mother, Fishel said, they learned the importance of speaking up − "a strongly worded letter to the correct people can, and will, make a difference."

Those lessons were recounted by Fishel as she stood in front of Littlestown's council on Tuesday, March 10, 2026, describing how Funt herself had contacted Littlestown officials to voice concerns over the very same intersection where she was killed.



Mary Fishel, sister of Rebecca Funt, speaks about her sister during the March meeting of Littlestown Borough Council, Tuesday, March 10, 2026, in Littlestown. Rebecca was killed after being struck by a vehicle while crossing a crosswalk in Littlestown on Feb. 4, 2026.

More"Safety was not a foreign concept to Rebecca or my family," Fishel said, "as you can see, speaking up for ourselves is not foreign either."

In her time walking through the borough, Funt had grown concerned about Littlestown's center square, where the busy state routes of 194 and 97 intersect amid a small downtown of shops, restaurants and apartments.

The central intersection where the two routes meet splits the town into quadrants, which, depending on the time of day, can be effectively divided by rivers of traffic.

More than 13,000 vehicles per day passed through the intersection in 2024, a number that is almost three times the town's estimated population in the 2024 census of around 4,900.

With the loss in her vision, Fishel said, Funt depended on the crosswalk and crossing signals to safely guide her across the busy intersection.

Building safe systems
"This is not an easy conversation for me," said husband Travis Funt as he began to speak in the Littlestown council chambers, "but it's an important one."

The meeting, which had Funt's husband and sister on the agenda to speak during public comment, had so many listeners in attendance that it resulted in standing attendees stacked out of the door to the council chambers.

"I'm here because I don't want another family in this town to get the phone call I had to," he said.
As he spoke, Travis urged the council to implement improvements that can make pedestrians safer − even when passing drivers make mistakes or become distracted.

"Every day, I've heard people say that the problem is bad drivers or distracted drivers, and I understand that driver behavior is absolutely a part of the issue," he continued.

"They look down at their phones for a second. They take a turn too quickly. They misjudge a gap. We all know it happens."



Travis Funt, husband of Rebecca Funt, speaks about his wife during the March meeting of Littlestown Borough Council, Tuesday, March 10, 2026, in Littlestown. Rebecca was killed after being struck by a vehicle while crossing a crosswalk in Littlestown on Feb. 4, 2026.

The truth, Travis said to the officials, can be hard to say out loud.

"We can't build safe systems that depend on every driver being perfect," he said, "because they won't be. None of us are."

"When the cost of a single mistake is someone's life, we have a moral responsibility to do better than to just shrug it away and say, 'Well, people should pay more attention.'"

Instead, Travis expressed, a truly safe system should be designed to protect people − even when someone inevitably becomes distracted or makes a mistake.

With that concept, Travis shared results from various pedestrian crossing improvements that have been found to improve pedestrian safety, such as flashing beacons, improved lighting, extending the head start of pedestrians, or providing a pedestrian-only traffic phase.

"These solutions don't rely on perfect drivers, they protect people when someone is distracted or make mistakes," he stated, "that's what safety is supposed to do."



A memorial is seen along East King Street, on Friday, Feb. 6, 2026, at the center square of Littlestown Borough. Rebecca Funt, 44, was killed on Feb. 4, 2026, while crossing the square as a pedestrian, according to the York County Coroner's Office.

MoreIn honor of his wife, who herself had spoken up about the safety of the intersection that ultimately killed her, Travis asked the council to take a serious look at the problem of pedestrian safety.

"We can't undo what has already happened, but we can honor it and make sure it never happens again," Travis said.

"We owe it to our community to take this seriously. We owe it to the people who walk that intersection every day. We owe it to the memory of the ones we've lost."

'A horrible intersection'
As Kellar, who serves as both police chief and borough manager for Littlestown, spoke with Funt's family during the meeting, he too expressed that Littlestown's square is "a horrible intersection."
"The amount of traffic that comes through this town is unbelievable," he said.

The challenge the borough faces, from his perspective, is not monetary, but rather in obtaining the state's approval to modify a state route.

Due to being on a state route, the traffic signal must meet the certifications of, and be calibrated to, the specifications of PennDOT. Without certification of the signal, the borough would take on additional liability in traffic incidents and be unable to prove accuracy in traffic investigations or issue citations that rely on these approved measurements.

In its current state, the traffic signal turns yellow for three seconds, followed by a three second "red drop," a phase in which the traffic signals remain red as the pedestrian signal activates.

Kellar spoke with PennDOT officials, he said, who told him that "there is not an issue" with the signal, which he said meets current PennDOT standards. "I'm not saying I agree with it," he continued, "but in PennDOT standards, it's not an issue with the way that traffic light is controlled."

Along with those standards, he said, PennDOT will only approve flashing pedestrian warning lights at crosswalks that do not have a traffic signal. In addition, on the subject of turning lanes, Kellar stated that the narrow passage through the downtown area has no additional room to add turning lanes.

In the wake of Funt's death, Kellar said he has called on the assistance of the Local Technical Assistance Program (LTAP), which he said will be sending a technician to Littlestown to assist them in navigating through the regulatory and technical hurdles of obtaining approval for improvements.

LTAP, he said, will also be able to assist Littlestown with conducting a traffic study on the intersection, a step required prior to improvements being approved.



Littlestown Borough manager and police Chief Charles Kellar speaks to the family of Rebecca Funt during the March meeting of Littlestown Borough council, Tuesday, March 10, 2026, in Littlestown.

A likely first step, which he said can be implemented relatively quickly for a three-month trial period, would be requesting the light to be reprogrammed to feature a four-second pedestrian lead-in phase.
In that phase, pedestrians would have four seconds to enter the crosswalk prior to traffic moving, intending to increase their visibility to drivers.

While Kellar said he was hesitant to share much information on the ongoing criminal case against the driver in Funt's death, he expressed his view that a four second lead-in would most likely not have prevented her death.

The criminal case involving Funt's death is due for a preliminary hearing in April, Kellar said, with the alleged driver, Jose Delio Reyes Lopez, 39, of Frederick, currently held in prison after being denied bail on a misdemeanor charge of recklessly endangering another person, along with summary traffic citations.

"There may be additional charges, but we brought these charges to hold him," Kellar said. "We know those charges will stick, and he'll be here for his trial."

"The reason we had to do that is because ICE also put a detainer on him. If we would not have arrested him, they would have picked him up and deported him immediately."

Using security footage, Kellar said, he timed that Funt was in the crosswalk for roughly seven seconds prior to being struck by the truck, which was making a left turn onto King Street.

"Not saying that it won't help in the future," Kellar said, "it could, but I don't think it would have helped in this case."

Still, he said, such an improvement is the fastest change that can be made concurrent with a traffic study, and can be followed by other improvements after the study is analyzed.

In his view, Kellar said, the traffic signal improvement most likely to have prevented the circumstances of Funt's death would be a phase where the signals in all directions hold as red while pedestrians are allowed to cross.

"I think the only thing that'll fix this, and it's going to be a fight, is if we have an all-four red stop."
"I think it’s a fantastic idea," Fishel responded.



Mary Fishel, sister of Rebecca Funt, speaks about her sister during the March meeting of Littlestown Borough council, Tuesday, March 10, 2026, in Littlestown. Rebecca was killed after being struck by a vehicle while crossing a crosswalk in Littlestown on Feb. 4, 2026.

Despite the "all-four red stop" phase appearing to be an effective solution for Littlestown's crossing, Kellar expressed that traffic experts have told him that the phase is rarely approved for signals on state roads in Pennsylvania.

"I was told, don't hold my breath," he recounted, having been advised that approvals are rarely granted for projects that stop the flow of traffic in all directions along state routes.

Those designs, he was told, often result in "more complaints" from drivers, a consideration he voiced objection to.

"To me, a life is more important than a five-minute backup," he said, adding later, "I don't care that they have to wait an extra five minutes to get through an intersection."

Amid the discussions, Kellar had noted that the town logged 19 reportable traffic collisions in the Littlestown square in 60 months.

Because of that, with an average that falls just under once every three months, he said he was unsure how the results of the required study would be measured in terms of safety if no collisions happen in the study's three months.

"My question was, well, if you don't have anything happen, how do you quantify that?"

Just 36 hours after the 6:30 p.m. Tuesday meeting, according to Littlestown police, another pedestrian was struck by a vehicle crossing the intersection around 7:12 a.m. on Thursday morning, March 12, 2026. The injuries, as reported to the county, did not appear to be life threatening.

In a release, Littlestown police shared that in the March 12 incident, both the pedestrian and the driver involved had been cited as being at fault as a result of their investigation.

According to their release, in that incident , the unidentified pedestrian injured in the incident allegedly "failed to activate the crosswalk button" and entered the roadway under a "don't walk" signal, while the driver was alleged to have failed to yield the right of way to a pedestrian in a crosswalk.

With another pedestrian struck so soon after the Tuesday meeting, social media circles in Littlestown soon filled with hundreds of comments as the community predominantly voiced the need for improvements to occur as quickly as possible.

'Everything we can'
After hearing from Funt's loved ones, council members pledged to her family that they would continue to work on seeing improvements come to the troubled intersection.

"I think we need to pursue everything we can," said council President Craig Rosendale as he spoke with the family.

"We may talk to state legislators for this area, and we may want to get the two of you to get involved with some of those discussions," he said to Travis and Fishel, who both indicated they were willing to assist in continued advocacy for the improvements.

"We will continue to work on this, and ask for your continued help in any way we can make a good use of that."

"I know that this wasn't easy for you to be here tonight," Rosendale said, "but I appreciate it very much."

As the meeting moved towards the next item on the agenda, council member Brent Sheely took a moment to recognize the large crowd gathered at the meeting to support Funt's family.

"I want you to take a look around at what this town is really about," he said.

"We don't always get along, we don't always agree, but when something like this happens, this town pulls together."

Harrison Jones covers Adams County for The Evening Sun. Reach him at hjones@usatodayco.com.

This article originally appeared on Hanover Evening Sun: Littlestown, Pa. woman died in the crosswalk she sought to make safer