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and Rappahannock is to accelerate the Route 17 construction and rebuild the road from Warrenton to Marshall.”
Accidents here involving tractortrailers have gone from one in 1983 to four so far this year, according to Highway Department statistics. The number of fatalities arising from those accidents stands at four. That death toll has prompted a strong response from the supervisors.
“The Board of Supervisors of Rappahannock County is extremely upset over the increasingly hazardous burden our citizens are expected to bear in order that users of Route 17 may be spared such tragedies as we have endured," wrote John McCarthy in a letter last week to Constance Kincheloe, Culpeper District representative on the Highway Commission. “We urgently request that the Virginia Department of Highways and Transportation reconsider the closure of Route 17 to truck traffic, and that highway improvement plans be altered in recognition of this clear and present danger to highway users.”
The supervisors were unanimous in their agreement that Rappahannock lives should be deemed as valuable as Fauquier lives. “If tractortrailers are a danger to the folks on Route 17 in Fauquier, they’re just as dangerous — probably more so — to people here on Route 522,” maintained Supervisor Nelson Lane, pointing out that sight distance is less on Route 522 and driveway entrances onto the road more in number than on Route 17.
Supervisor Newbill Miller agreed with Mr. Lane, but reminded his fellow board members that Fauquier voters number over 35,000 while Rappahannock voters are just 6,000 — a probable factor in the Highway Commission’s decision to send tractor-trailers over Route 522 in Rappahannock instead of Route 17 in Fauquier. “They’ve got the clout; we haven’t.”
After considering — and rejecting — protests to the Governor and various other officals, the board approved Mr. McCarthy’s letter to Ms. Kincheloe and authorized their administrative assistant to contact Rappahannock’s representatives in the Virginia Senate and House of Delegates for suggestions on other roadblocks the county can erect, if any, to tractor-trailer traffic.
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