……..I remember the description I loved most about New Cumberland. It was in 1973 when a writer called Donald Dale Jackson called us “A sleepy, little river-hugging town of fire department picnics and car chasing dogs.” I thought at the time the writer was pretty much on target. We’re still a small town whose citizens work together on great events, support each other, and value the safety of a quiet neighborhood. Times change though and it’s seldom you see a dog roaming loose (unless Shannon’s dog, Rooney, has discovered a way out of his wooden fence, backed by chicken wire and intended to be escape proof. )
………..An increase in business is good for the county even if it’s not located in our incorporated community and no one wants to be anti-business. We need every job we can get. But, that increase in business often means an increase in truck traffic and increasingly trucks that blatantly ignore the speed limits. When the new portion of road straightens out the S curve, I worry the truckers will become emboldened when they have a straight shot, especially if they know New Cumberland is doing nothing about it.
………….It appears the truck are consistently ignoring our speed limits. I was told the police were running radar during May. If you take a look at the police report from May, however, there were only 2 citations issued, neither were for speeding. A lot of the trucks are Ergon Oil Tankers, who add insult to injury by blowing their horn as they travel through the 25 mile zone at 4:30 a.m.
I know this isn’t a problem unique to New Cumberland and I wondered how other communities had dealt with it. The increased number of trucks from the oil & gas industry caused communities like Bethlehem problems. Morgantown even went so far as to try to ban trucks through mid-town, but the WV Supreme Court said no.
I think it’s wrong to bring up a problem without offering a solution that’s been defined as whining and I am not a whiner so I came up with a few suggestions.
**We need open communication with the management of companies sending their trucks down our road. Let them know their trucks are speeding and that New Cumberland is taking action by running radar.
**Keep a log of when the roads are seeing the heaviest traffic and then schedule our patrolman to run radar doing those hours.
**Greater awareness of your speed is shown to reduce speed. I think signs immediately before the 25 and 35 mph areas clocking the vehicles speed as they pass would be a deterrent
**And, a sign which says “We value our citizens’ safety and enforce our speed limits” would also make truck drivers aware we mean business.
It’s time we took a comprehensive, multi-faceted approach to speeding trucks and take assertive action to ensure New Cumberland is safe for our residents.
