Pepperell students say to add rumble strips to Ga. 101
High school students meet with GDOT official and share a recommendation on how to make Rockmart Highway safer.
Students meet with a GDOT official on how to make Rockmart Highway safer.
Pepperell High School students offered a relatively simple recommendation on how to make Rockmart Highway safer: Install rumble strips to let drivers know when they cross the centerline.
Members of Students Against Destructive Decisions at Pepperell met with David Adams, systems administrator at the Georgia Department of Transportation, at the school Tuesday.
According to statistics the students shared, since 2010 there have been 631 wrecks on the road with 251 injuries and four fatalities.
The statistics were provided by Floyd County police records.
The group especially focused on head-on collisions and impacts caused by a vehicle crossing the centerline.
The teens proposed adding rumble strips to
the center of the road.
The rumble strips are familiar to most drivers on the shoulder of interstate highways.
The rumble strip creates noise and vibration as car tires cross them and are dangerously close to running off of the roadways.
“This is exciting stuff as you have progressed from educating your peers on highway safety to finding actual engineering solutions to highway safety problems,” Adams said. “This is an excellent example
of researching an issue and finding a positive solution.”
The students cited a 2003 study by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that reported highways with the rumble strips reduced crossover crashes as much as 64 percent with most showing a 40 to 60 percent reduction. The study also reported that rural roads like Ga. 101 account for 60 percent of all fatalities.
Students participating in the presentation included Bailey Cordle, Heaven Forsyth, Brady Gladney, Jannah Phelps, Darby Morgan, Heaven Spain and Breanna Smith. SADD advisers are Alana Ellenburg and Laura Byrd.