THONOTOSASSA, Fla. — A stretch of road in Hillsborough County got a close examination by county officials Tuesday after a pattern of deadly crashes in recent years.
Their hope was to identify needed improvements to safety features in an effort to cut down on the number of serious accidents on Morris Bridge Road in Thonotosassa..
“We can give tickets all we want, and we are doing that, there’s a lot of traffic enforcement, but we recognize that’s not enough,” said Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office Chief Communications Officer Danny Alvarez. "So at this point, we’re going to bring in the experts.
“We’ve had, over five years, 158 crashes, five of them fatal. We know that one fatality is way too much, especially for those families, so when we look into something like this and we see that kind of a trend, that definitely raises our eyebrows.”
County engineers and sheriff’s deputies have combed the section of Morris Bridge Road looking for ways to make it safer, like replacing signs, looking at the possibility of adding a shoulder or even lowering the speed limit.
The speed limit along the stretch of road is 45 mph, but deputies say they find a lot of drivers going 60, or even faster.
“When we did our study recently, we had someone going 97 mph on that road,” added Alvarez. “We know that drivers have a responsibility but we also know that the road design, that might have a factor as well. Signage might have a factor, so it’s a combination of both.”
County engineers will take their notes from Tuesday’s survey and compare them with input from deputies to come up with a comprehensive plan for the roadway. It will likely take years before all the planned improvements are complete.
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