Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, January 9, 1995 TAG: 9501090027
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RICHARD FOSTER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
"If ghosts do exist where people meet sudden tragedy, then Virginia 24's haunted,'' said Bedford County Board of Supervisors Chairman Dale Wheeler.
``If we stuck up tombstones everywhere there's been an accident on 24, it'd be the biggest cemetery in Bedford County.''
Virginia 24, a main artery to Smith Mountain Lake, also has become an important commuter road between Bedford and the Roanoke Valley. From the Roanoke County line to Virginia 122 in Moneta, it dips and twists over narrow bridges and steep hills in the Stewartsville and Chamblissburg communities for 17 miles, most of them treacherous.
From the beginning of 1990 to the end of 1993, seven people were killed and 229 people were injured in automobile accidents there - a body count that has local residents fed up.
Now, several state and local groups, including Virginia State Police, the Department of Motor Vehicles, the Department of Transportation and the Chamblissburg Ruritan Club, have joined to make Virginia 24 safer.
As part of a pilot program begun last year to improve Virginia road safety, the highway department targeted Virginia 24 in Bedford County and the more urban Harrowgate Road in Chesterfield County for improvements because of the frequency and severity of vehicle crashes on them.
For Virginia 24, that means a $500,000 allocation, mostly from federal highway funds, to make improvements such as adding turn lanes and paved shoulders in particularly dangerous areas of the road.
Added to the kitty is a $20,000 grant from DMV to increase law-enforcement coverage and raise driver awareness in the area for the next two years.
\ From early November - when state police began receiving money to pay officers for overtime to patrol Virginia 24 - to the end of 1994, troopers logged 229 work hours, drove 6,285 miles on Virginia 24, and arrested 195 people for speeding, nine for reckless driving, three for driving under the influence and one for possession of marijuana.
They also cited 25 people for hazardous moving violations, 43 for not wearing seat belts and 26 for equipment violations.
And the arrests will keep coming, said 1st Sgt. Bobby Ratliff, who works in the state police's Bedford County office.
``We're burning them up down there,'' he said, ``and, without the grant, we would've missed all of it. We do enforcement on 24, but it's not been in a concentrated effort like this.''
The added police presence is much needed, said state police Sgt. Hayward F. Wray. ``I've worked more fatalities on 24 from 122 west than on any other road I've ever worked.''
Why is it so dangerous? Weather and alcohol seem to have little to do with it.
According to figures provided by VDOT, about three-quarters of the accidents on Virginia 24 happened in clear, dry weather during daylight. Alcohol was a factor in only about 9 percent of the accidents.
Fifty-seven percent were simply caused by drivers not paying attention while traversing the dangerous road.
``They're putting tapes in the car stereo, looking off the road, eating cheeseburgers, whatever,'' Ratliff said. ``They're just not paying attention.''
And on 24, that can be a problem.
\ Two of the road's biggest problems were highlighted in an unusual wreck in December when a drag-racing teen-ager crashed his car into a school bus that had stopped to pick up a child.
There are five schools on Virginia 24 - Roanoke County's William Byrd High School, and Bedford County's Stewartsville and Body Camp elementary schools, Staunton River Middle School and Staunton River High School.
``It can get pretty hectic,'' said Brian Weeks, a firefighter with the Stewartsville and Chamblissburg Volunteer Fire Co. ``The bus traffic is moving through rush-hour traffic, and that creates problems.''
Add to that Virginia 24's long-standing reputation as a racing spot. The average speed violator on the highway travels at a minimum of 70 miles per hour, according to state police.
Weeks estimates that his fire company answers probably more than 50 calls for assistance each year at wrecks on Virginia 24 that are caused by reckless driving or teens showing off.
In convenience stores and neighborhoods surrounding Virginia 24, residents tell of nearly being run off the road by racing dragsters jockeying for position, sometimes crossing a double yellow line just to win.
Nathan Minnix, a junior at Staunton River High School and a volunteer with the Chamblissburg Rescue Squad, described the races, saying, ``One will whip around the other one and then maybe pass another [car] - it's right ignorant, if you ask me.''
\ Virginia 24 originally was a winding dirt road. It became a state route when it was covered with gravel in 1932.
The worst part of 24 - a hilly 21/2-mile section that crosses three branches of Beaverdam Creek - twists and turns as if it were created by a child who has just learned to draw the letter ``S'' and copies it over and over.
For 60 years, the only major changes to Virginia 24 were that its surface was improved and the road was widened to four lanes from the Roanoke County line to a point just west of the center of Stewartsville.
In 1992, the Chamblissburg Ruritan Club, with the help of local delegates, got an additional three-mile section of Virginia 24 widened to four lanes. Widening the road - and the addition of a traffic signal in 1990 - decreased accidents dramatically at the intersections of Virginia 24 with Virginia 1022 and Virginia 619.
Harry B. Reed Jr., president of the Chamblissburg Ruritan Club, said the safety improvement program, as a stopgap measure, has been a good first step in eliminating the dangers of Virginia 24.
But he said there's still a lot more that needs to be done. He would like to see all of 24 widened and improved through Chamblissburg to Moneta.
Dale Wheeler, the area's county supervisor, has the same wishes: ``Our transportation needs are growing in Bedford County. We can't sit back and put up with roads built in the 1910s and 1920s anymore. They just can't handle the traffic on them anymore.
``We're not saying we need four lanes to grow - the growth is already here.''
\ From his automobile repair shop in Stewartsville, Bill McCormack has seen a lot of the traffic growth.
``You come down here after dark, at 5:30, around rush hour,'' he said, ``and it's just like a string of Christmas lights, the cars bumper to bumper down the hill.''
``I've seen several accidents out here - one went over the bank over there a couple of months ago. They go too fast, speeding, racing down this road.''
Because of the sharp curves in the road, ``When you try to pull out of here, you can't see people until they're right on top of you, right behind you, and they're already going 55 to 60 miles per hour,'' he said.
Jim Witt, manager of the Lancer Mart at the intersection of Virginia 24 and Virginia 122, said, ``Fifty-five's the speed limit, but everybody's driving at that or more. It's bad. There's not that many places to pass and, if you're going under the speed limit, people get anxious and they want to get around you.''
But, he said, the added police presence has already improved things on the highway.
Witt, the convenience store manager, said, ``I was just telling a state policeman in here yesterday that it seems better since they've been working it more. People are more conscious of how they drive, it seems.''
Others agree. ``The troopers are tearing people up at school - for speeding, for tinted windows, for stereos that are too loud,'' Minnix said.
Weeks said: ``It's calmed down a whole lot - the state police have been working it real heavy. That's helped out a lot.''
And that, along with some much-needed improvements to the road, is what the task force is hoping it takes to put the ghost of Virginia 24 to rest.
Keywords:
FATALITY
by CNB