Lauderdale: Why I-95 remains a death trap in SC
Here are five images that should shame South Carolina:
A smiling face.
A stout tree.
Two people lying in the middle of a road.
A leaky bucket.
And a pot of crabs.
Sharon Toomer's smiling face will linger in the minds of Hardeeville Elementary School students. She greeted them daily as the cashier in the cafeteria line. Toomer, 52, was killed on her way to work Wednesday morning. Her car left Interstate 95 and collided with a tree. Toomer became at least the 18th person to die in a tree-related accident on I-95 in Jasper County over the past six years.
An investigative report done by this newspaper in March showed that despite four other South Carolina counties having more crashes than we, we were far and away the leader in fatalities, nearly one-third of the total.
That's why some call it the "coffin corridor."
The DOT quickly responded to our report, committing to a safety project for the area. But here we are, nearly a year later, and we are no closer to being any safer.
Stout trees line the interstate, sometimes as close as 10 feet. And even when hit by fast-moving objects as heavy as cars and trucks, the trees don't bend.
The same can be said for South Carolina's leadership. The recalcitrant state legislature won't bend. It insists on keeping highway spending a matter of politics, not life and death.
In this state, a handful of senior legislators make highway decisions for political gain and, unfortunately, poor little Jasper County hasn't had the political clout of the good old boys needed improve I-95.
For years, locals have begged for some money to cut trees or install barriers to reduce the outrageous rate of fatalities on I-95 in Jasper County.
But the facts don't matter in South Carolina. I-95 rides like the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Funeral after funeral are held. It doesn't matter. Nothing changes.
Meanwhile, two people lie down in the middle of the Pamplico Highway to make a point.
"It's safe to take a nap in the middle of the road," said one of them, activist Dana Beach of Charleston.
Yet the SC Transportation Infrastructure Bank wants to widen 24 miles of the road to nowhere from two to five lanes. It will cost $144 million, most of it borne by the state.
That project has the support of state Senate President Pro Tempore Hugh Leatherman, R-Florence. He sits on the state Infrastructure Bank board. He and House Speaker Jay Lucas appoint four of the seven board members.
Before them, two other senior legislators controlled the board and most of the money flowed to their district. Since its founding in 1997, the Infrastructure Bank has spent $3.6 billion on roads. Two people control it. And what they do is not part of the S.C. Department of Transportation, and does not necessarily mesh with DOT goals.
The state Infrastructure Bank needs to be closed.
State Sen. Tom Davis, R-Beaufort, has used the image of a leaky bucket to show how far state highway funding has veered out of control.
When a bucket is leaking, you don't pour more water in it, you fix the leaks.
Davis argues against the knee-jerk reaction in Columbia: raise the gas tax. Pour more money into a leaking system that can't even measure the dangers of I-95, or US 17 headed to the bridge to Savannah -- and do something about it in an timely manner.
With politicians in control of our highways, most of the money goes to sexy new projects instead of the grunt work of maintenance and repair.
Give them more money without fixing the leaks, Davis says, and the "coffin corridors" will still wait behind the Pamplico Highways.
South Carolina could do better, but it won't. Senior legislators have the power of Zeus, and they won't give it away for the good of the state.
That's why it's said the best image for South Carolina history is a pot of crabs. When one crab starts to claw out of the pot, the others pull it back in. If Charleston gets road money, the Pee Dee, or Charleston, or Columbia will pull it back into the pot.
The scene never changes, and Jasper County loses all day every day.
That's why South Carolina is known for its "corridor of shame" and "coffin corridor."
It should be known for its smiling faces.
Like Sharon Toomer greeting children in the cafeteria line.
Follow columnist and senior editor David Lauderdale at twitter.com/ThatsLauderdale and facebook.com/david.lauderdale.16.
Related content:
March 1-2, 2015 Only 35 miles of Interstate 95 run through Jasper County. But the short stretch is deadly -- because of trees. More motorists are dying in tree-related wrecks along this main artery to Hilton Head Island than anywhere else along I-95 in South Carolina. And nothing is being done to reverse the deadly trend. Our two-day series explores the emotional and financial costs of the wrecks and why fixing it is harder than you'd think. | READ
- $144 million Florence road example of cronyism, critics say, Oct. 24, 2015
This story was originally published February 4, 2016 at 5:27 PM with the headline "Lauderdale: Why I-95 remains a death trap in SC."