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Kudos for the Suggestion

Kudos to the resident suggesting a traffic light at the Flat Meadow Road/Durham Road Route 77 intersection. We are grateful, too, for local and state officials who took the suggestion to heart and did the research to justify the enlightened request. The original timetable for planning a light due to backlog at the state was accelerated by a tragic accident at that intersection.

I do public health research and wanted to remind readers that mitigation can often help reduce risks even before a definitive solution. It works for mask use in a pre-vaccine era for respiratory diseases like RSV or COVID-19, and it works in traffic safety. Examples include blinking lights that remind drivers to slow down, a blinking red for lower volume Flat Meadow Road and blinking yellow for high volume Durham Road, and smart signs that announce a drivers’ traffic speeds. Any of the three are examples that can be placed very, very quickly, even as one awaits a definitive solution of a traffic light or speed bumps (the latter would be less safe for a state highway like Durham Road).

Congratulations to the activist and our officials.

Sten Vermund

Guilford