Too many drivers act as if Route 31 in Westminster is a speedway, whizzing down the road at up to 90 mph.
And installing a traffic light at Route 31 and Tahoma Farm Road won?t slow the drivers, residents told the State Highway Administration.
The speed limit needs to be lowered and enforced, about 40 residents said at a meeting Monday.
Last October, 16-year-old Charlie Diegel died when a dump truck blindsided his vehicle as it pulled onto Route 31 from Tahoma Farm Road.
“With all due respect to data, you can?t put a measure on a human life,” said Denise Diegel, Charlie?s mother. “We should lower speed limits, because the community wants it.”
The SHA says it plans to eliminate left turns onto speeding Route 31 traffic from Long Valley Road, and funnel it to the traffic light at Tahoma Farm.
But the SHA, which clocked vehicles going 90 mph on Sunday mornings, said data shows reducing the speed limit wouldn?t slow traffic significantly.
Multiple deaths have resulted in recent years when drivers tried to turn onto Route 31 and join the speeding traffic, mostly large trucks, Westminster City Administrator Marge Wolf said.
A traffic light would help, resident Tom Crawford said. But, he added, “Until state troopers do what they?re paid to do ? and that?s stop traffic ? more and more people are going to get hurt.”
The signal won?t be complete for a year, said John Concannon, assistant district engineer for the SHA.
Until then, the state would ask police to more closely monitor the dangerous stretch of road, he said.
County Commissioner Dean Minnich vowed to meet with the SHA and the city to devise ways to slow vehicles.
“I think if people are speeding, they should have their licenses taken away from them,” he said.
