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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Neighbors Want Speed Limit Lowered Kids Wait For Bus Alongside Highway 41 Near Rathdrum

Jackie Holiday used to tremble at the thought of drivers speeding past her second-grader as he waited at the bus stop.

Now, she complained Monday, driving too fast is even legal.

Holiday lives north of Rathdrum along state Highway 41, where the Idaho Transportation Board recently raised the speed limit to 65 mph.

She, her neighbors and several city and school officials argue that the 10-mile stretch of road between Rathdrum and Spirit Lake is not suited for its old speed of 55 mph, let alone a faster one.

There are too many access points, too little room and too many children playing at the end of rural driveways, they say.

“People constantly pass you, ignoring the solid yellow line,” Holiday said. “And they go right over where my son stands.”

While residents wage a letter and petition campaign to try to get the speed limit reduced, they fear it’s a battle they easily could lose.

Speed limits are set using a fairly simple nationally recognized formula, said workers at the state Transportation Department.

The formula states: The appropriate speed is what 85 percent of motorists would drive voluntarily, provided there is no unusual accident history, visibility problem, pavement condition or traffic congestion.

During tests before the speed limit change, traffic workers found most drivers traveling between 60 mph and 69 mph. The road has a relatively low accident rate - fewer than three per mile each year.

Engineer Jim Armitage said fewer than 5,000 cars travel the road per day. “It’s a low-volume two-lane highway,” he said. “But I know that doesn’t change the perception.”

His department is restudying the road to see if it erred in its traffic studies, he said. Results will be available by mid-September.

But for some residents, that’s not good enough.

“I want it changed before school starts,” said resident Vivian Ward, who has four children, ages 6 to 12, who wait by the road for the bus.

It has narrow shoulders with four-foot culverts on the side, she said. Buses stop in the middle of the road. If drivers swerve to avoid the buses, they could end up hitting the buses or barreling into a ditch, Ward said.

“I had somebody flip upside down on my property,” she said. “If my kids had been waiting for the bus, they’d be dead.”

Lakeland School District Superintendent Bob Jones also has asked that the limit be dropped. He said there are more than 30 bus stops along that road.

“There are too many cars, traveling too fast for the conditions already,” he said. “All you have to do is travel it and check out all the black marks where people slammed on their brakes to stop.”

That’s the stretch of road where a logging truck spun out on snow in December 1994 and slammed into a school bus, he said.

The transportation department’s District Engineer, Scott Stokes, promises to review the data to see if he can recommend it be changed back.

That’s not likely unless he finds errors in the earlier review, he said.

“If you want to change the way people drive you can’t do it just by posting new speed limits,” he said.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo Map of area