BY KATHY BARATTA
Staff Writer
HOWELL — A longtime Church Road resident says motorists are driving too fast along her street and she wants the Township Council to do something about it.
Petra Murray, who has lived for more than 20 years on the curve of Church Road, said the traffic problems really began when a Wal-Mart on Route 9 was built several years ago.
Murray said residents of Jackson who are trying to bypass the traffic on Route 9 are using Church Road to cut through to the Wal-Mart and other new shopping centers on Route 9 in Howell. She said the addition of two new major shopping centers anchored by Kohl’s and Target have really worsened the traffic problem on Church Road.
“When you literally can’t get out of your own driveway it’s a serious problem,” she said.
Murray said she is “intimidated” by motorists when she slows down to enter her own driveway.
She said the problem is worsened by the fact that drivers pass on a double line at the blind curve in the road where her house sits.
Murray said she lives with the fear that she will either be impacted by a collision caused by speeding vehicles as she enters or exits her driveway, or that she will witness a collision.
Either way, she said, something needs to be done. That is why she is contacting her 30 or so neighbors who live along Church Road. Murray believes there is strength in numbers and said once she gets her neighbors involved she will formally ask the council to take action.
Murray said she realizes it would be cost-prohibitive for the police to enforce the two speed limits along the road — 40 mph for much of the road except at the curve, where it slows to 30 mph.
She said that instead of an actual police presence, perhaps a camera recording speeding motorists for future prosecution would be an option to consider.
“I’m not sure what’s available to them; I’ll defer to the experts,” she said. “All I do know is that something has to be done.”