Citizens concerned about excessive speeding on county roads in Madison and Limestone counties

MADISON, Ala. (WAFF) - Paula Pabst is concerned with the excessive speeding she sees while she is out in her yard, not far from where Bethel Road becomes Ready Section.

“It has been worse,” Pabst said. “We have lived here for six years now at this house and it just keeps getting worse and worse and people just do not even regard the speed limit.”

She said the speeding has gotten so bad that she checks her mail through the back side of her mailbox to avoid getting close to the road.

Just a few months ago, she said a speeding truck crashed into her yard.

“A pickup truck was speeding the trooper said it was an excessive 75 miles an hour,” Pabst said. They came along and took out our neighbors mailbox. Then they were still in the air but, hit the concrete of the drive way and stopped and kind of went down. The concrete of the curb here of the driveway actually went as far as our neighbors that way.”

She said drivers need to slow down and she wants the speed limit lowered.

“If you look down this way their is enough of a hill that you cant see the cars coming,” Pabst said. “That is not a very far distance. You need a sign down there that says, ‘blind driveway’, or something because you can not see them. So, if you back out you’re going to get hit. Especially when the car is going 45 miles an hour or more which is normally the or more.”

Limestone County Commissioner for District 3, Jason Black, said county leaders will consider these concerns, but he’s not sure lowering the speed limit would help.

“Lowering the speed limit is not the golden answer,” Black said. “Because if someone is doing 65 mph in a 35 mph zone, if we lowered that from 35 to 15, they’re still going to go 65 mph and over because they did not respect the 35.”

Troopers with the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency are working with agencies from other states to tackle speeding through an initiative they’re calling, “Operation Southern Slow Down”. However, that initiative is mostly tackling speeding on interstate highways, not county roads.

Copyright 2022 WAFF. All rights reserved.