ACCIDENTS: Waiting to happen

For those of you unfortunate enough to have to travel on Highway 53 from Washington state line into Rathdrum, then you must have noticed that all trucks are forced to go 30 mph. This means that you will also have to go 30 mph alone with the long line of cars behind the truck. This wisdom is put in place by the Idaho Department of Transportation to preserve the road surface from being damaged by changing temperatures. Apparently, a truck weighing 50,000 pounds going 55 mph will damage the road more than a truck at the same weight going 30 mph.

However, U.S. 95 and I-90 don’t seem to be affected by this phenomenon. This goes on twice a year for months on end. The danger lies in frustrated car drivers trying to power around the truck, on an already dangerous road, and come close to a head-on collision with traffic going the other way. Is IDOT waiting for people to unnecessarily get killed, like they do on the railroad crossings, before they look for a real fix to the problem? Like, how about paving the road with a better quality road surface that can resist changing weather conditions?

This problem needs to be fixed permanently. Let’s get in the 21st century already.

ROGER CARVER

Rathdrum