Speeding on detour route raises concern
October 13, 2013
"This is a serious wreck just waiting to happen," said Jereme Grove.
According to Grove, traffic has increased nearly 12-fold, and drivers are ignoring the posted 25 mile-per-hour speed limit and no passing signs. In normal times, he said, you'd see around 15 to 20 vehicles on the road a day, now he's seeing around 200.
The detour is expected to remain in place through the rest of the month and possibly into November.
"There was one guy came through here at about 60 miles an hour and passed another rig right on the curb," Grove said. "He actually came up in my yard. If he'd lost it, he'd have been in my living room. And it's happening all the time. I worry someone is going to get killed."
Grove said he asked both Sheriff Greg Sprungl and Boundary County commissioners about increasing patrols to provide speed enforcement, but his requests have gone unanswered.
"If they'd started enforcing the speed limit right after the detour was put in place, handed out a few tickets, people would have gotten the message," Grove said.
He and his girlfriend, he said, have gone so far as get license numbers and descriptions of particularly egregious offenders and call them in, agreeing to sign citations, but even those calls go unreturned.
Prior to the detours going into effect, county road and bridge crews did what they could to make the route safer, dropping the speed limit from 35 to 25 miles per hour and posting signs, widening and straightening the roadway where possible.
But Lookout View Road remains a narrow and twisty country lane, not even a true two lane, Grove said. And unless drivers slow down, he said, he expects the worst.