Two-and-a-half mile section of US 25 will be the site of a

rural safety initiative

               Transportation Secretary H.B. Limehouse Jr. has announced that the South Carolina Department of Transportation (SCDOT) has received funding from the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) for a safety project aimed at reducing crash and fatality rates on rural highways in the state. FHWA has awarded $840,000 for the project on US 25 in Greenville County. SCDOT has pledged $210,000 in match money.

               The funding will provide safety components normally found on interstate highways such as traffic cameras, overhead changeable message signs and a variable speed limit system, which is a network of electronic speed limit signs that can utilize weather and road surface information to adjust speed limits. In addition, SCDOT has committed approximately $1 million of Highway Safety Improvement funds to apply high friction surfacing on one mile of the two-and-a-half-mile section of highway.

               SCDOT sought this funding because South Carolina has long had one of the highest highway fatality rates in the nation, with a majority of those deaths occurring on rural roads. Greenville County has the second-highest number of rural fatalities in South Carolina over the last five years. The project area on US 25 is a segment of highway located in a remote area of Greenville County with mountainous terrain, sharp curves and steep drop-offs. Crash data shows that 85% of the crashes on this segment of US 25 took place when the pavement was wet. A significant number of these crashes involved vehicles that “hydroplaned” as a result of speeding. In all the crashes reported in the last five years on this portion of US 25, law enforcement officers cited “Too fast for conditions” as a contributing factor in 87% of those incidents.

               Secretary Limehouse said one aim of the project is to educate drivers. “Our engineers can design and implement many techniques that will improve the safety of our highways from an engineering standpoint, however drivers must make driving safely a priority so that these techniques can be effective and save lives,” he said. Limehouse also thanked US Department of Transportation Secretary Mary Peters for providing the funds for this project. The funding available for these types of projects nationwide totaled only $14.7 million. Limehouse credited SCDOT engineers once again for having projects updated and ready to go when funding becomes available.

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