THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, August 17, 1994 TAG: 9408170418
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY ANNE SAITA, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CURRITUCK LENGTH: Medium: 64 lines
Currituck County will not be getting any more state troopers to patrol its portion of the Outer Banks - at least not this summer.
Sgt. A.C. Joyner of the State Highway Patrol's 9th District told the Currituck County Board of Commissioners Monday night that there are no troopers to spare for additional patrols in the Corolla area.
``I have requested more help for Currituck County,'' Joyner said. ``But the highway system has no more to give.''
The county currently has four full-time troopers who patrol from the Virginia state line to the Wright Memorial Bridge and along the northern Outer Banks beginning just south of Corolla.
Last week County Manager Bill Richardson wrote to Joyner, asking for increased patrols in Corolla during the peak tourist seasons.
That request came out of an earlier meeting with members of the Whalehead Properties Owners Association. Concerns included the state police's limited patrolling and long response times during busy summer months.
Joyner, a state trooper since 1972, agreed there was a need for a stronger presence on the Outer Banks. ``It astounds me the amount of people up there,'' he said.
An estimated 30,000 vehicles daily travel along Currituck County's main highways - N.C. 168 and U.S. 158 - on summer and holiday weekends. These roads accommodate about 90 percent of the traffic to the Outer Banks, officials said.
Most automobile accidents occur on the mainland, not along the beaches, Joyner said.
Between January and Aug. 12 there were 275 car accidents on the mainland, including five fatal wrecks. Five of the eight people killed have died within the past two weeks.
``We're just overwhelmed with wrecks,'' Joyner said.
``As the stats show, this is where the work is. This is where we're killing people - right there on U.S. 158 and 168. We're not killing as many in Corolla,'' the trooper said.
Of the 10 accidents reported on the Outer Banks during that same period, only one included a fatality. That involved a 16-year-old Pennsylvania girl killed last month in the Whalehead subdivision.
Joyner supervises 10 state troopers patrolling Currituck and Dare counties, as well as Hyde County's Ocracoke Island.
Currituck wrecks exceed Dare accidents about 2-to-1, Joyner told the commissioners.
Response times, he added, may be improved by placing a county magistrate in Corolla - something the unincorporated resort town's residents have been pushing for, too.
Traffic violators who are not from a ``reciprocating state'' must be processed at the Currituck Courthouse in the central part of the county. The booking process can take as long as four hours, police have said.
A magistrate on the northern Outer Banks would drastically reduce that amount of time and keep troopers on the road longer, Joyner said Monday.
KEYWORDS: NORTH CAROLINA STATE POLICE DEPARTMENT
CURRITUCK COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
by CNB