Editorial

        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.

It was remarkable. Up until just five minutes before the polls closed Tuesday night, most well-known and well-paid pollsters and political analysts were still calling the race for the Democratic nomination for United States Senator from Pennsylvania “too close to call.”

Even as the results came trickling in, they stood by their declaration that incumbent Democrat and former Republican Arlen Specter and Congressman Joe Sestak were locked in a dead heat and that it could be “a while before a winner is declared.” At 10:15 p.m., just two hours and 15 minutes after the polls closed, Arlen Specter conceded that he had lost the seat he held for 30 years to the retired Navy Admiral.

The fact that Sestak won really isn’t that surprising. What is notable is that he won the nomination with 54 percent of the vote compared to Specter’s 46 percent. Not much of a nail-biter here, but it did keep people glued to the election play-by-play on television and radio (unless you are a die-hard Flyers or Phillies fan).

The consistent, down-to-the-wire predictions also kept big campaign dollars flowing into television and radio advertising well after the polls closed. You would think that airing campaign ads after the polls closed is a waste of donated campaign dollars. Somebody didn’t think it was important enough to check the airtime schedule before they approved and paid for the advertising. Those kinds of mistakes reflect poorly on the candidate.

Specter was doomed when he cast his vote in favor of the Senate’s version of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. He was one of only three Republicans to support the bill. To many Republicans, that was the last straw. Specter’s switch to, and hoped-for support from, the Democratic Party came too late. Thirteen months

was not enough time to prove himself to the Democratic voters and gain their trust. You didn’t need to be an overpaid political analyst to figure that out.

Over the past three decades, Specter was described as more of a “centrist” – not leaning hard to the left or right. That position won him many general elections during that time.

Speaking of general elections, now the race begins to the big contest in November. Joe Sestak will face off against Republican Pat Toomey. The former Congressman from the Lehigh Valley handily disposed of his primary opponent Peg Luksik in the primary race.

The upcoming mid-term elections promise to be volatile. Campaign dollars will be flowing freely and high rollers and special interest groups will shovel money into this seemingly bottomless pit until record-breaking numbers are reached.

Meanwhile, the sane road for voters to take is to begin the learning process now and don’t stop learning about the candidates until you cast your vote in November.