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Lowering speed limit in 70 Mile House a quick and easy fix

Improved highway infrastructure would make residents and travelling public safer

To the editor:

As a resident of 70 Mile House, I don’t feel that lowering the speed limit through our community is the only way to make this stretch of highway safer, but it is a quick and inexpensive way of making it safer at least until truly safe infrastructure is put in place.

Neither a lower speed limit nor improved infrastructure will make any highway 100 per cent safe, but it would make the highway through our community at least “reasonably” safe.

Right now, it is just dangerous. Every day, we have near misses on this stretch of highway.

Visitors to a local business said they had wanted to stop the previous time they had gone through the community but couldn’t because another vehicle was coming so fast behind them they didn’t feel safe slowing to make the turn.

Friends thinking of stopping to visit our residence have gone by for the same reason.

A young woman considering moving to 70 Mile said she was waiting till it was safe to turn into the subdivision at Willow Drive when a pickup truck came around the corner from behind her so quickly, he passed her on the right at great speed. Had he misjudged the narrow shoulder, her car would have been totalled. She said it was scary.

70 Mile House has been a stopping place along the Cariboo Highway for over 150 years.

The current situation often makes it difficult for the travelling public to stop to enjoy our hospitality, our services and our area. It affects our businesses, our residents and does nothing to promote tourism in the area and it is dangerous.

We were lucky the recent transport truck accident did not involve other vehicles or anyone’s death. Improved highway safety may or may not have prevented this or similar accidents, but it would definitely give everyone a better chance.

By maintaining the current speed limit through a residential area, I feel the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure is putting us and the travelling public at risk, and is also affecting the actual viability of our community.

Gail Moseley

70 Mile House