Officials press for safety steps after fatal crash
By: Cynthia Williamson
LAMBERTVILLE City officials hope to prevent another tragedy like the one Friday when a tractor-trailer hauling trash went out of control and crashed through the Lambertville Video store, killing the clerk inside and injuring four other people.
So they have asked the state to prohibit all interstate trucks from state roads, except for those making local deliveries.
"We’re asking the governor to finish the job she started," Mayor David Del Vecchio said, referring to a law signed last year by Gov. Christie Whitman that bans trucks 102 inches wide from state highways. City officials want the law extended to include 96-inch trucks.
Expansion of the truck ban was the most sweeping of three resolutions unanimously adopted Monday by City Council. The council also is asking state officials to reduce the speed limit on state highways 179, 165 and 29 from 45 mph to 25 mph through Lambertville.
"We have too much vehicular traffic, pedestrians and too many people on bicycles," the mayor said.
The council also is petitioning the state to install a flashing warning signal at the crest of the steep hill on Route 179 to alert motorists traveling south on the state highway to the traffic light at the Bridge Street intersection.
"Joan went to work on Monday and just for going to work, she died," said Mayor Del Vecchio, who asked for a moment of silence in memory of Joan Eshen at the start of Monday’s council meeting.
Ms. Eshen, 54, of Delaware Township, was conscious when rescue workers removed her from the video store wreckage but died hours later while undergoing surgery at the Capital Health System at Fuld hospital in Trenton where she had been flown by medical helicopter shortly after the 3:10 p.m. accident.
Supporting Lambertville’s efforts were Hopewell Township officials and East Amwell Mayor Les Hamilton, who attended the council session.
"It’s not the first tragedy, and it won’t be the last," said Hopewell Township Deputy Mayor and Public Safety Director Jon Edwards, adding that township officials would be proposing a similar resolution to Lambertville’s truck ban when it meets later this week.
Hopewell officials worked vigorously for the 102-inch wide truck ban and while Mr. Edwards said it was effective for a time in reducing tractor-trailer traffic on Route 31 through the township by as much as 55 percent, he lamented that "trucks are back."
"Local police departments can’t enforce the laws, and the (truck drivers) know it," he said.
Currently, only New Jersey State Police have the authority to enforce the width ban and conduct roadside truck inspections. But Lambertville and Hopewell officials said they want the law expanded to include municipal police.
"The legislation is all there," Mr. Edwards said. "We really need the governor to sign on and get something done instead of just giving lip service."
A representative from U.S. Rep. Rush Holt’s office read a letter the congressman wrote to Gov. Whitman urging her to extend the width ban, allocate funding for increased enforcement and support local jurisdiction of the truck laws.
Quoting from state Department of Transportation traffic counts released this week, Hopewell Township resident Joe Kowalski, who heads a regional traffic task force representing the township, Hopewell and Pennington boroughs, said 700 "heavy trucks" travel Route 29 daily between 5 a.m. and 6 p.m. nearly double the number of trucks on Route 31 during the same period.
"I was surprised the tractor-trailer traffic still continued this weekend," Lambertville Councilwoman Cindy Ege said. "I thought it would subside but (the accident) didn’t have an impact on truck traffic at all."
City resident Steve Stegman said the aggressive action being taken by officials is all well and good, but he wanted to know what they planned to do in the meantime to prevent another tragedy.
"What are you going to do to make sure something like this doesn’t happen tomorrow?" asked Mr. Stegman, who was traveling north on Route 165 in front of the video store just seconds before the horrifying impact.
"What I saw in my rear-view mirror, I never want to see in this town again," he said.
David Ringer of Lambertville wasn’t so fortunate. He was traveling in the opposite lane alongside Mr. Stegman, and the front of his vehicle was clipped by the tractor trailer as it swerved to try and avoid colliding into him.
"That truck was a foot from the front of my car before it swerved," he said. "Thank God I’m alive, and I feel awful about what happened. But those trucks now have taken the highway away from me."
Concerns with truck traffic and safety are ongoing discussions in Lambertville.
"It breaks my heart that we were not able to prevent this death," said William Taylor, a Delaware Avenue resident who led a unsuccessful grassroots charge a number of years ago to restrict or ban trucks from Main Street, which also is Route 29 through the city.
"We’ve spent 10 years or more trying to prevent this tragedy," Dr. Taylor said. "And it’s only going to continue if we don’t do something."
Friday’s deadly crash adds to the list an increasing number of fatalities in the region involving tractor trailers.
A truck driver perished in a fiery crash in August in front of the Golden Nugget flea market on Route 29 in West Amwell Township, two miles south of the most recent tractor-trailer accident.
Also in West Amwell on Route 31, the driver of a car was killed instantly two years ago when a tractor-trailer lost control and swerved into oncoming traffic. Last year, a tractor trailer careened off Route 31 in East Amwell and smashed into a house but no one was seriously injured.