Ingrid Mayer has witnessed enough accidents outside her Area A property and will move speed signs herself if she's asked to.
The woman, who lives just outside of Fruitvale, is garnering support for her cause to reduce the speed of drivers on a stretch of Highway 3B, about two kilometres north of the village.
She's circulating a petition and asking local politicians to get behind her campaign, recently gaining a letter of support from Fruitvale council, and is set to meet with the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure's Darrell Gunn Thursday.
“The traffic is plentiful out there and nobody is slowing down,” she told Fruitvale council on Sept. 9. “Just to walk along that area is nerve racking.”
Leaving Fruitvale, drivers roll past a cautionary sign that suggests to slow to 60 kilometres before travelling through a blind curve. But before they make their way through that corner, a speed up to 90 km sign can be seen and acceleration begins, she said. Unfortunately, drivers are speeding up as they pass Old Salmo Road, where school kids are picked up and dropped off, and several homes follow.
Beyond excessive speeding, Mayer said there is plenty of wildlife that roam the nearby marshy fields and Beaver Creek and a school bus stop lacks an identifying sign.
“The catalyst for me was when a moose was killed,” she said Friday. “Since then there has been two deer run down and a bear further up the road.”
The unreported incidents also add to the list and as a result Mayer has decided “enough is enough” and has stepped out for the cause on behalf of her neighbours.
She would like to see the 90 km sign moved out further northbound, past the last blind corner, and would like to see southbound traffic slowing to 60 km, at least a half a km earlier then where a slow to 70 km sign currently is located.
The Trail and Greater District RCMP were out monitoring the area recently doing spot checks as a result of concerns raised, according to RCMP Sgt. Rob Hawton.
“What we found was there was not a significant issue with excessive speeds over the posted limit in the 70 km per hour zone, and few were caught that warranted a ticket,” he said. “Those incidents were in the area where the limit transitioned from 90 to 70.”
For the record, he said there have been three reported collisions there since March to August with the most recent being on July 29, the moose incident.
Beyond a more controlled speed zone, Mayer would like to see larger wildlife signs, a school bus stop sign and an increase in police presence.
“We have none, zero, except when (the police) raced by to a crash further down the road,” she told Fruitvale council. “They could, I'm sure, make time once and awhile to maybe hit some people in their pocket books, where it might count.