Editorial

                As headlines, news stories and police reports chronicle the unthinkable in our hometowns, we all need to remember that our “four-county corner” of the Commonwealth is indeed a good place to live and work. 

                A possible murder-suicide in Marlborough Township, an alleged attempted homicide in East Greenville, a suspected theft of a six-figure amount from a trusted employee - and these are just the local headlines from this week.  There’s more coming next week.

                We live in a volatile time where tensions are raised and tempers are close to boiling nearly every day and nearly everywhere.  Tolerance seems to have become a thing of the past as more and more people and organizations become aware of a sense of “entitlement.”   Patience fades as we all become emboldened by the sense that somebody owes us something and that society should be focused on me – or my cause.  Narcissism seems to be at an all time high.

                Add to that the unstable economy, the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico causing the worst ecological disaster in the history of the United States, fighting two wars in foreign lands and the list just seems to go on and on.  People who once reached for the brass ring now find themselves grabbing at straws of sanity.  Just when you thought it was safe to smile again, another deluge of bad news permeates the media and sends us back to an unhappy place.

                Somewhere along the way we took veterans and bonafide heroes off our pedestals and replaced them with sports figures earning seven-figure salaries and loud-mouthed TV political analysts spewing hate and intolerance. 

                But there is still plenty of good to be found - and you don’t have to look hard.  Our local “Relay for Life” events speak volumes for what can happen when a small community unites for a common cause.  The American Cancer Society benefits when these events happen and the search for the cure and cancer patients themselves become the ultimate beneficiaries.

                The Upper Perkiomen Valley Relay for Life kicks off this Saturday at 10 a.m. on the grounds of the Upper Perkiomen High School.  The festivities continue through 9:30 Sunday morning.  This isn’t a competition – rather it’s a coming together of people to raise money for a common purpose.  Yes, the groups and teams are grateful for your donations but nothing will inspire them more than something that will cost you a lot less – your attendance.  All it takes is for you to set some time aside and stop in and walk around the stands, listen to a speaker or two, take in some of the events and thank the participants for their efforts.  

                Just remember that when things seem like they couldn’t get any worse, they can.  Make it a point to enjoy today and smile.  Do your part to make today better than yesterday – not just for you but for those around you and even for those you don’t know.

        You can see for at least a quarter-mile in all directions and the intersection is controlled by a traffic light.  Why, then, is the crossroads of Geryville Pike and Route 663 such a magnet for traffic accidents?  That location was the scene of two more crashes over the weekend – one very serious.

        Our fire, rescue and ambulance crews are making too many trips to that location and the Medi-Vac helicopter may as well install a windsock and landing lights in the parking lot of Lighthouse Christian Fellowship Church to aid them with their emergency landings there. 

        It isn’t even the end of May and already in 2010 that intersection has been the scene of more than a dozen traffic accidents from fender benders to multi-injury crashes – some resulting in serious, permanent injuries.  The public shouldn’t have to wait for a fatality at the accident-prone location before action is taken.

        One only needs to spend a little time watching drivers navigate the intersection to see that they, themselves, are responsible for nearly every crash.

        There is only one marked lane in each direction for vehicles to travel.  That means if the vehicle in front of you is making a left turn and you pass them on the right, you are passing illegally.  You stand a good chance of striking a car coming in the opposite direction and making a left turn in front of you. 

        Right turns on red are permitted at the intersection but there are no right turn lanes.  That means you need to stay in the traffic lane and wait your turn to traverse the intersection.  If you pull onto the shoulder of the road, around a vehicle stopped at the intersection, to avoid traffic and make your right turn, you are passing illegally.  If the intersection is crowded, your chances of being seen by vehicles who have the right-of-way is diminished.

        Traffic backs up quickly at the heavily-traveled intersection.  There are many rear-end collisions caused simply by the driver not paying attention.  The speed limit is 55 mph, and that doesn’t leave much room for error when you’re coming up on stopped traffic.

        Most importantly, there are simply too many drivers trying to “beat the light.”  Whether they’re going straight or turning, they truly believe that red means stop, green means go and yellow means go faster.  The driver's entire being is focused on the light and not on the traffic around them.

        Perhaps turning lanes can be added to the intersection with appropriate signals to control them – after all, traffic has increased markedly at the crossroads since the light was installed.  While we’re waiting for that to happen, maybe PennDOT can install barricades to keep traffic off of the shoulders and on the road.  One thing that is hard to engineer a correction for is careless driving.  For that, we need enforcement of traffic laws.

        Geryville Pike is a Montgomery County road, Route 663 is under the jurisdiction of the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation and the location is in Upper Hanover Township.  We urge all three to communicate with each other and review the intersection with the hope of developing a plan to make the crossroads of Geryville Pike and Route 663 safer.

        And do it before somebody has to pay the ultimate price.