A single-vehicle crash on Highway 152 over the weekend brought
home yet another tragic reminder of the dangerous condition of one
of the highways that serves our community.
A single-vehicle crash on Highway 152 over the weekend brought home yet another tragic reminder of the dangerous condition of one of the highways that serves our community.
Three people – a 66-year-old woman, a 50-year-old woman and a two-year-old boy – were killed early Sunday when a Dodge van went off the narrow, winding two-lane road and flipped west of the intersection of Highway 152 and San Felipe Road.
We’ve said it before and we’ll keep repeating it until the problem is fixed: This highway is a deadly menace to motorists.
Some 30,000 vehicles a day travel this notorious stretch of highway. For thousands of San Benito County residents, it’s part of the weekday commute. For others, it’s the route of holiday visits to family and friends. For the trucking industry, Highway 152 is a primary avenue for getting goods to and from the Silicon Valley, the Monterey Bay and points east, north and south.
State transportation officials say the accident rate on Highway 152 is 58 percent higher than on similar two-lane highways in California.
There has been talk for decades about the need for safety improvements to Highway 152. These concerns have led to truck passing lanes along the approach to Pacheco Pass. And construction is expected to begin next spring on a long-discussed flyover ramp at the pinch-point junction of Highway 152 and Highway 156, where traffic snarls sometimes extend for miles.
But these repairs, while welcome, fall far short of bringing this roadway into shape to safely serve the growing number of drivers who use Highway 152 today. The highway must be widened and straightened.
It’s going to take a focused and coordinated effort involving local officials in both San Benito and Santa Clara counties, area legislators and state transportation officials to secure funding and make this happen. But it can be done.
Until the needed improvements are made, we must all be mindful of the danger we face every time we drive on this highway and take a few personal safety precautions. Turn on those headlights. Obey the speed limit and the no-passing signs. And remember to always buckle up. (It’s certainly worth noting that none of the three people who died in Sunday’s wreck were wearing a seatbelt.)
Last year, nine people died along this stretch of Highway 152. Such horrific statistics are simply unacceptable. Traffic safety has to be our top local transportation priority.
