The in basket: Roberta Worley wrote last fall to say,”I read
about the morning accidents on Highway 3 Friday morning after
Thanksgiving. “My mother had a 180-spin on Highway 3 south of
Newberry Hill Road years ago,” she said. “While she no longer
drives, she was a conservative driver. ‘Black ice’ forms on that
stretch of highway. I do not believe there was any warning about
the icy conditions on that spring morning.
Is there any such warning now?”
Monthly Archives: March 2007
In the days of road thaw closures…
The in basket: Ann Horn’s “Remember When” piece on Sunday, Feb.
11, included an item that jogged my memory.
“Emergency weight limitations were lifted from Kitsap County’s
roads today,” it said, reprising an item from February 1957, “and
school buses and other heavy vehicles were allowed to operate for
the first time since last Wednesday’s thaw closed schools for three
days.”
I had forgotten about those road closures, which also kept garbage
trucks and fuel oil delivery trucks off the restricted roads.
Signal badly needed at Highway 3 and 106
The in basket: Orville and Bette Lund of Allyn send an e-mail
recently saying that on March 1 “we drove Highway 3 to Belfair at
about 4:30 p.m. As we started down the hill toward Highway
106, we were amazed to see a long line of cars on 106 waiting to
enter Highway 3.
“A traffic light would be a God-send.”
Why Mile Hill Drive and not Sedgwick Road?
The in basket: Tim Ferris writes, “It has perplexed me as to why the county prioritized the Mile Hill Drive widening and improvements over Sedgwick Road (Highway 160), with Sedgwick Road being a much higher priority from my perspective.
What’s planned for opening new Narrows Bridge?
The in basket: I recall reading some years ago about a group of people who pride themselves in being the first to cross a new bridge or other major project. I asked Claudia Cornish of the state engineering office for the new Tacoma Narrows Bridge what they expect in that regard when their bridge opens this summer.
Rough pavement patch in Manchester
The in basket: Lisa Clark of Manchester wrote to ask “how much longer the residents of Manchester have to continue driving on the TERRIBLE patch job the contractors did when installing underground pipe on Colchester Drive when leaving Manchester? Why isn’t the county involved with repairing this section of road? Not to mention the various signs and equipment that has been left behind after the project was completed months ago! I for one, am tired of the whole mess!”
Why isn’t liability insurance required on motorcycles?
The in basket: Chuck Weaver of Poulsbo wrote so say, “I was recently told something I could not believe, until I looked it up. I had always thought that all motor vehicles were required to be insured. A friend told me that RCW 46.04.330 specifically exempts motorcycles. It does? How can this be? “Why would the Legislature exempt such a large group of motorists from the mandatory insurance requirements?” he asked.
Speed limit change coming near Gorst
The in basket: A reader whose name I’ve misplaced asked over a year ago why the speed limit coming out of Gorst heading toward Tacoma remains 50 miles per hour almost to the Tremont interchange. There doesn’t seem to be any reason that it shouldn’t go to 60, the speed limit from Tremont south, right after it passes Anderson Hill Road, he said.
Three-second amber light not unusual
The in basket: Juanita Moore wrote to say that traveling on Finn
Hill Road, heading east toward Poulsbo, she saw what she considered
a “very fast yellow” on a traffic signal.
“I have timed it (using) the one-thousand-one, one-thousand-two
method and get one-thousand-three almost out before it changes,”
she said. “Have seen a couple of people run it and I took a few
miles off my tires the other day as I glanced at my speedometer,
looked back up and it had gone yellow. (I was doing 30) It was red
before I got stopped!
“Isn’t that a bit quick?”
The lowdown on disabled parking spaces
The in basket: Scot Runyan asks “If you have a handicapped sticker displayed on your vehicle, does that entitle you to park anywhere or just where there are signs for handicapped parking? Specifically– if you have a handicapped sticker displayed on your vehicle does that entitle you to park in a “loading and unloading zone?”
