I have to echo Alston Lee’s letter of March 8 (Prest Road needs upgrade). My family has experienced two almost tragic/fatal accidents on that road in the past 10 years. First incident was my wife taking my son to a football practice. Another on coming vehicle, started to veer into her lane, and my wife having to actually get into the on coming lane to get out of the way.
The other driver drove right across my wife’s lane. Everyone was okay, except for a farmer’s fence and tree. “Sorry, I fell asleep” was that excuse.
I just happened to be on a city advisory panel at the time, and brought up this issue with Prest Road, suggesting something needed to be done. The mayor at that time (almost l0 years ago now) just happened to be there, and said “Prest Road is an issue, but is a very difficult road to do anything with due to the ditches on one side and the power poles on the other, but maybe we could consider a rumble strip’. No rumble strip 10 years later!!.
Second was just under a month ago: I was driving home from an early morning meeting and an on-coming vehicle started to slowly come into my lane. I had absolutely no where to go, but pull over as far as I could very close to the ditch, and lay on the horn. The other driver – with head down (likely a cell phone) – looked up at the last minute, yanked on the wheel and got back into his lane, totally fish tailing past me, and carried on leaving me totally in a daze and thinking “wow, that could have been game over”.
I think the City does a great job with our roads, but Prest really needs to get put higher on the priority list before someone gets seriously injured. Yes, it is a difficult road and will likely cost a few bucks, but how long do we have to wait. Two times lucky for just my family; how many more drivers have had close calls?? A rumble strip would be a great start.
Jim Hipwell