Rising Death Toll on ND Highways

“The traveling public doesn’t obey lowered speed limits…”
-Scott Zainhovsky, North Dakota DOT [Minot Daily News, 8/8/09]

“How many deaths will it take ‘til he knows, that too many people have died?” -Bob Dylan

“You know they care; you just don’t know how little…” -Carol Christianson

I had a really bad dream the other night.

I dreamed that a public health care option passed Congress and was signed by President Obama, and that the man put in charge of it was…Sandy Blunt. (Somehow Glenn Beck had attacked Blunt for being too close to Van Jones and knee jerk reactions did the rest.)

While this particular WSI nightmare of the American people betrayed by public officials was fiction, a recent nightmare of a friend of mine was not.

He was driving his car at the posted speed of 65 mph on ND State Highway 8 from State Highway 23 to Stanley. He came over a hill and saw a “Bakken Behemoth” (one of the huge trucks serving the oil industry up there) blowing into the intersection ahead without stopping, blocking any decent possibility of stopping in time or going wide to the right on a two lane road with lethally narrow shoulders. Going left could mean a head on.

The Good Lord and good brakes delivered my friend from becoming another death statistic in one area of North Dakota where rising fatalities cannot be attributed solely to unbuckled seat belts or reckless driving.

He recovered his composure and hailed the shaken driver of the Behemoth.

Although remorseful upon being reminded that his non-stoppage had made his truck’s turning radius onto the highway far wider than if he had turned from a standing position, the truck driver had not broken the law. Like many points along Highway 8, there was no stop sign warning him not to proceed onto a busy highway, no blinking red and yellow lights to warn cars and trucks alike of the impending danger.

Ah, but travelers along this stretch of Highway 8 will be getting rumble stripes! Nice to hear that you are crossing the center line or going off the road to avoid hitting a truck, I suppose.

Why rumble stripes instead of widening the shoulders, better signage, blinking lights, and/or lowering of the speed limit to 55 mph, as recommended by the Mountrail County Commissioners?

Because, as explained by Scott Zainhofsky of the North Dakota Department of Transportation, “The rumble stripes on the edge line and center line help both head-on and runoff road crashes and [we] can install them for a fraction of the cost.” (Minot Daily News, 8/8/09).

Ah yes, cutting costs, what a wonderful concept for a private agency, which Mr. Zainhofsky seems to think the North Dakota Department of Transportation is, instead of a public agency mandated to increase highway safety rather than obstruct it.

It reminds me of the great job of cost cutting that Clarence Thomas did in his days at the federal EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunities Commission) by making it a hindrance to equal employment rather than an enhancement.

I am also reminded of what indifference can do when it uses cost cutting as an excuse. Witness what George Bush’s Mike Brown did to Jimmy Carter’s FEMA by, apparently, not even bothering to watch the Weather Channel as Hurricane Katrina hurried towards New Orleans.

As you know Mr. Zainhofsky, North Dakota is a single neighborhood connected by long streets. We all have loved ones scattered throughout this State who could be sacrificed to your indifference and that of your glad-handing, insincere Governor, John Hoeven.

Consider this, however.

Stop unconsciously serving the Chamber of Commerce, and start consciously serving the people of North Dakota. The life you save by pressing for common sense speed limits, proper signage, and strategically placed warning lights in areas of western North Dakota where cars are routinely endangered by “Bakken Behemoths,” may be one of your own family in years to come.

Maybe even a Republican.

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