Drivetime Mahatma

Troopers citing away on U.S. 70

Mahatma: With all the fatalities on U.S. 70 between Interstate 30 and Hot Springs, why does the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department think spending millions to redesign the road, instead of putting up proper signage, will reduce those fatalities? Also, could the Arkansas State Police assign more troopers to patrol rather than control traffic at Oaklawn Park? -- Disgruntled Taxpayer

Dear Disgruntled: Perhaps you will be gruntled by what we are told by both agencies. Perhaps not. Yes, gruntled is a word, meaning pleased, satisfied or contented.

First, some background.

As written in the newspaper Jan. 29 by ace transportation reporter Noel Oman, the Highway Department will merge two U.S. 70 projects into one. Estimated cost of $68 million to $75 million. The project will essentially widen the route to five lanes with shoulders and put up a traffic signal at U.S. 70 and Arkansas 128. Estimated completion is in 2018.

Right now the section near I-30 handles 14,000 vehicles a day; closer to Hot Springs the count is about 11,000.

But the most important number is that the route -- which now is mostly two-lane with passing lanes here and there -- claimed 12 fatalities in 2015.

Now to the responses and explanations.

The Highway Department, through spokesman David Nilles, said the highway speeds are indeed posted. (The Mahatma interjects: Many motorists, all over, see those signs and regard them as suggestions or minimums. That's a fact, Jack.)

Nilles said that not only will U.S. 70 be widened, eliminating the need to pass in the opposing lane, some of the curves will be straightened out. "I think once the improvements are completed, we will see a drop in the number of accidents."

We next went to Bill Sadler, who speaks -- sometimes forcefully -- for the state police. He offered some of what he called perspective.

Statewide in 2015, troopers issued 66,000 "violator citations for speeding offenses." That figure doesn't include traffic stops and warning tickets for speeding.

More to the reader's suggestion that more enforcement is needed on U.S. 70, Sadler said that over a recent weekend troopers issued 40 speeding tickets along the highway in Garland County. And, during a December 2015 saturation patrol there, 119 speeding tickets were issued.

Sadler explained something readers of this column already know, or should. The Highway Department sets the speed limits along U.S. and state highways and decides where speed limit signs should be erected, after which enforcement is the responsibility of law enforcement agencies.

Here comes the forceful part.

"It may be an illogical assumption, but odds are most of the drivers stopped for speeding last year got a glimpse of a speed limit sign somewhere along the way before being stopped and ticketed."

Ya think?

Vanity plate on a black Mustang GT: GROWLER

Mahatma@arkansasonline.com

Metro on 03/19/2016

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