Intersection perilous for trucks: 18-wheeler overturns this morning, one of about 30 wrecks at 24-48 junction
By Ernest Herndon | Enterprise-Journal
Posted: 08/04/08 - 11:40:23 am CDT
LIBERTY — An 18-wheeler trailer overturned this morning at an intersection where such incidents are all too common.
At around 6:35 a.m., a BTI chip truck of Brookhaven driven by Fred Catling of Liberty lost its load as it turned south off Highway 24 onto Highway 48 just west of the Amite County courthouse.
“It just come a-loose,” said the uninjured Catling, standing at the scene as acting police chief Nathan Toney and his father, county solid waste director Murry Toney, busily directed traffic.
Wood chips spilled onto Busy Corner Wholesale used car lot at the corner, piled up against the front bumpers of vehicles.
Semis have overturned at the intersection for years, said Mayor Rick Stratton. “More than 30 have overturned since the ’70s,” Stratton said this morning.
Town officials have asked the Mississippi Department of Transportation to fix the intersection, but so far no solutions have resulted, Stratton said.
“They’ve been here and looked at it,” he said. “I think the road really needs repaving and that corner built back up.”
MDOT district engineer Darrell Broome said a safety engineer and a traffic engineer are evaluating the situation, but he doubts rebuilding the corner is likely.
“You’d have to close the roadway,” Broome said. “That would be one of last options, just because of the inconvenience it would cause everyone. But that’s something we will look at.”
He said he believes the trucks are simply going too fast when making the turn.
“A lot of it is just enforcing the speed through there,” Broome said. “The turning movements at any rate of speed seem to be the cause of the wrecks — any high rate of speed. They’re moving faster than they can negotiate the turn.”
The MDOT has put signs up alerting drivers to the upcoming intersection, he said.
The four-laning of Highway 24 with a bypass around Liberty should solve the problem, but that’s years in the future, Broome said.
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