A recent accident at the intersection of Route 612 and Route 340 that took the life of a Crimora woman hits home for me.
Crimora is my hometown, and like other drivers familiar with that area, I’ve known about the dangers at that intersection since I got my first driver’s license in the 1980s.
Drivers on Route 612 entering the intersection from the east and turning north have long faced a hill with limited sightlines and traffic that is supposed to be coming at them at a maximum speed of 45 mph, but is often traveling at 55 mph or more.
It was a crapshoot back when Route 340 was just a two-lane road.
Very early in my journalism career, back in the mid-1990s, one of the first stories I covered was an improvement project in the VDOT six-year plan that was promoted as a solution to the issues at the 612-340 intersection.
My assumption before plowing into the details was that the work would grade the hill to give drivers entering from Route 612 an enhanced sightline.
I was wrong. What VDOT did instead was widen Route 340 from two lanes to five, making the turn for drivers turning north onto the highway from Route 612 two lanes more difficult.
And with southbound traffic on Route 340 needing to go from two lanes to one a quarter-mile from the intersection, there’s incentive for drivers to ignore the post 45 mph speed limit as they pass through.
You’d think the engineers would have accounted for the difficulties for drivers entering the intersection from Route 612, of the incentives for drivers on Route 340 to speed to avoid getting caught behind slower traffic southbound, to want to do something about the hill.
You have to wonder if the people responsible for the design actually drove the intersection from all angles a few times, or just sat in an office.
A recent story in the News Leader about the deadly intersection reports that VDOT traffic data doesn’t justify the installation of a traffic signal at the intersection.
Doing nothing is also not justified by the daily reality for drivers in the Crimora area who are taking their lives in their hands every time they drive through there.
Story by Chris Graham
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