Beatty struggling with highway speeding issues

BEATTY — How do you get them to slow down? How do you get them to stop?

Those were the major questions addressed at the Beatty Town Advisory Board in late September. Beatty residents continually see drivers speeding into town and ignoring the stop sign at the town’s main intersection where Highway 95 makes a 90-degree turn to continue toward Tonopah.

Resident John Lupac brought the problem before the board, and it is one they have dealt with more than once in the past.

Board treasurer Erika Gerling reminded Lupac that they had petitioned the Nevada Department of Transportation before, but had not gotten any help with the problem. “Their position is that it’s too expensive; there are too many signs,” she said.

One problem is that many of the people traveling the road either don’t understand the existing signage or aren’t looking at it, according to a representative from the Nye County Sheriff’s Office.

“Ninety percent of them are foreigners,” deputy George Wehrly said. “They’re from another country, and they’re lost.”

Nevada Highway Patrol Sgt. Carlos Rivera said that many of them don’t look at the signs at all, only looking at their GPS units, and some of them mistake the U.S. highway number, 95, for the speed limit.

Rivera also said that traffic enforcement has been more of a challenge since they recently lost two troopers assigned to Beatty.

“We have been having correspondence about the stop sign and the crosswalk since about 2012,” Town Secretary Carrie Radomski said.

“It’s time for (Nevada Department of Transportation) to step up,” Lupac said. “We can send a letter directly to the governor if we can’t get this taken care of. We have to get ourselves as a town to demand this. Our time is here and now.”

Jason Duesterbeck, a highway maintenance supervisor for the area for NDOT, said that the traffic engineers were willing to work with the town and are supposed to be coming to evaluate the situation.

One of the suggestions brought forth was the idea of putting in rumble strips to make drivers more aware of the need to slow down and stop.

Gerling assured Lupac, “We will put the things forward that we asked for and were denied, and we will keep putting them forward.” She even suggested the town would be willing to help with the cost.