|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
The California Highway Patrol issued nearly 200 citations, mostly for speeding, as officers saturated the Bay Bridge’s S-curve over the weekend, a California Highway Patrol spokesman said Monday.
CHP Officer Herman Quon said between 11:30 p.m. Friday and 4 a.m. Monday, 169 drivers were cited for speeding, and nearly 30 for other violations, on the S-curve. Officers also verbally warned numerous motorists as part of an effort to educate the public on the dangers of speeding on the
bridge.
The CHP began regularly saturating the bridge with officers during off-peak hours Thursday night and will continue indefinitely, Quon said.
There have been at least 43 accidents on the S-curve since that temporary section of the roadway was installed over the Labor Day weekend, including a fatal crash Nov. 9 in which a big-rig toppled over the side of the bridge.
“We looked at the 43 collisions we’ve had and they all pointed to one common denominator,” Quon said referring to speed.
Quon said officers are able to use lanes closed by the California Department of Transportation to safely pull over motorists.
He said the enforcement is part of a larger effort to educate the public on the dangers of speeding on the bridge. Caltrans has also installed additional safety measures near the S-curve, including extra speed limit signs, reflective striping along the barriers on the roadway’s edge and raised bumps between lanes.
The weekend enforcement marked a big increase in the number of citations issued on the S-curve, Quon said. There had been approximately 700
citations issued on the S-curve in the two months between Labor Day weekend and when the increased enforcement began last week, he said.
The speed limit on most of the bridge is 50 mph, but the limit drops to 40 mph on the S-curve, with a maximum 35 mph recommended on the sharpest curves.
“”We looked at the 43 collisions we’ve had and they all pointed to one common denominator,” Quon said referring to speed.”
I’ve looked at the collisions and have determined that the common denominator is a BAD IDEA in the first place: the S curve should have never been built.
OK. So lets poorly design a roadway. Then give out tickets to speeders. So now it is the drivers fault. Did they forget the roadway is still dangerous. The speed limit on the bridge is 50 mph. The s-curve is 35. It takes time to reduce your speed. Now there is another traffic hazard. Getting pulled over on the bridge. The department of transportation needs to take responsibility for their goof up.
A goof up, indeed. Don’t make the people pay for the mistakes of the dept. of trans. This is an example of useless tax payer spending. If you live in CA, you pay one way or another.
As much as we’d like them to admit the S curve is a goof-up, they won’t do it. That would open them up to lawsuits of all sorts if they blamed the problems on anyone but the drivers on the bridge.
Wasn’t there anybody checking the original ‘design’ ??? It would be funny, if it wasn’t so tragic.
“Wasn’t there anybody checking the original design ???” – This is a Caltrans project… Would that answer the question…:)