June 22, 2005
Ray City - This tree was split in half late Monday night after a semi truck ran the stop sign at Highways 125 and 37. "It came straight through, ran into the tree and caught on fire," said Ray City Mayor Carl Camon.
The driver escaped with only minor injuries, but others haven't been so lucky. Since January of 2001, there have been 14 accidents at this same intersection with one fatality and several serious injuries. "There are some serious problems going on here and our city can't handle state problems so we need the state to do what they can to help us out," said Camon.
There is a stop ahead sign just before the intersection, but there aren't any speed bumps and because of poor lighting, Camon says you can't even see the stop sign at night until you're right on it. "People who are from out of town and traveling through at night said they didn't see enough lighting around the area and didn't see enough warning signs to give them an indication of where they needed to stop," said Camon.
Ray City is a small town, but because of its location, thousands of vehicles pass through this intersection each day. "With Moody Air Force Base so close you have a lot of traffic coming from the base through Ray City and on to Nashville, you have people coming from Lakeland to Adel, you have Harvey's trucks coming through to the distribution center," said Camon.
Mayor Camon has written several letters to the Department of Transportation, and is pleading that they make traffic improvements around the intersection before someone else is hurt. "We either need a four way stop or we need to get some traffic control devices here," said Camon.
And he won't rest until those improvements are made and traveling through this intersection is no longer a safety hazard.
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