This guardrail damage, created in 2010, is less severe than that caused by the latest accident
POTTSTOWN PA – The dangerous curve just west of the Sanatoga Creek bridge on Pruss Hill Road in Lower Pottsgrove (PA) Township has claimed another vehicle, this one an unusual hit-and-run, and the situation has become bad enough that township commissioners and the police chief believe the only solution is to stop traffic there. Literally.
The heavily used road itself will remain open, but the Board of Commissioners on Tuesday (May 2, 2011) authorized Chief Michael Shade and the Lower Pottsgrove Police Department to conduct a traffic study which they believe will result in stop signs being placed on one or both sides of the bridge.
Drivers, beware: if the signs go up, the chief suggested, your compliance will be stealthily monitored.
Pruss Hill Road, for much of its two-mile length, is a serene country drive between its T-intersection with North Pleasant View Road at its west end, and the Limerick township line at its east. At its mid-point, however, for about a third-of-a-mile, the road twists into a hilly S-curve that might be considered worthy of European-style turismo racing. It even comes with picture-postcard scenery: a waterfall at the Pruss Hill Pond dam.
A embankment on the road’s north shoulder, just west of the bridge and the pond, drops off sharply. A guard rail there exists to protect motorists as they climb the hill and negotiate the curve. It or its predecessors have been hit hundreds of times over the years, primarily by speeding drivers. “People just go flying around that corner,” Shade acknowledged.
The latest blow, township engineer Scott Exley figures, was rendered by a truck. “It had to be something big,” he told commissioners. “It ripped the guardrail posts out of the concrete.” No one knows for sure, though; by the time police learned of the crash and went to investigate, the driver and vehicle were gone.
There are concerns about stop sign placement. “I’d be worried about somebody who stopped, getting hit in the rear by an approaching car,” board Vice President Bruce Foltz observed. Whether or not that’s valid is something to be determined by the traffic study.
Related:
- Stop Sign May Be Answer For Pruss Hill Road Crashes
- Pruss Hill Road Guardrail Now Repaired
- Use Caution Driving Pruss Hill Road
- Car Upended On Pruss Hill Road
Related (to the Lower Pottsgrove Board of Commissioners’ meeting of May 2):
Drop the speed limit here to 15 MPH.
The road is becoming a major access route to 422 from Gilbertsville / New Hanover. They bypass Pottstown and Route 100 by shooting down Rupert, down Pruss Hill Road, to Pleasantview and Bleim.