Seventy-Two Miles an Hour on the Oiled Road, and the Sheriff Is Asked to Stop It
Eleven cars tore past a half-mile stretch before midnight at forty miles an hour or better, and Finley parents want deputies posted along the road their children walk to school.
Tuesday night the auto speeders were unusually vicious along the oiled road. At seven in the evening one machine passed a given half-mile stretch in twenty-five seconds. At 7:40 he was back and made the same half mile in thirty-two seconds. Before 11:30 p.m. eleven cars passed this stretch going forty miles an hour or faster.
Such speeds not only wreck our roads, but it endangers the lives of the children who may have to cross the road or walk along it to and from school. The sheriff should deputize two or three residents along this road, and a few arrests for speeding would have a wholesome effect on the traffic and on the road.
“Such speeds not only wrecks our roads, but it endangers the lives of the children who may have to cross the road or walk along it to and from school.”
The complaint is almost word for word what rural Benton County residents say about traffic on the Kennewick–Finley road today: too fast, too close to the school route, and nobody enforcing. In 1916 the answer proposed was deputizing neighbours; a century on, it is traffic calming, speed feedback signs and school-zone cameras.
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