Residents just outside Raleigh have fewer options for slowing traffic on their streets
.jpg "A digital speed machine from the Wake County Sheriff’s Office tells drivers on Howard Road in North Raleigh how fast they’re going as they approach it. Drivers often slow down when they see how fast they are moving.")
Like a lot of Raleigh residents, Cindy and Greg Hinshaw think people drive too fast on their street. The speed limit on Howard Road is 35 mph, but it’s not uncommon for people to whiz past going 45 or faster, they say.
But the Hinshaws can’t get any relief through the city’s program to reduce speeding and “calm traffic” on residential streets. That’s because Howard Road isn’t in the city; when the Hinshaws leave their driveway, they leave the city for an unincorporated part of Wake County and onto a road controlled by the N.C. Department of Transportation, not the City of Raleigh.
The Hinshaws and a neighbor, Mark DeCain, have implored NCDOT to do something to slow traffic on Howard Road, which runs about two-thirds of a mile between Creedmoor and Ray roads. The most logical step, in their minds, would be reducing the speed limit from 35 mph to 30 or even 25 as the city has done on nearby streets.
“It would hardly change the travel time between Ray Road and Creedmoor,” Cindy Hinshaw said in an interview. “But it would help us tremendously.”
But Brandon Jones, NCDOT’s regional engineer, said the department sees no reason to reduce the speed limit on Howard Road and says it wouldn’t do much good anyway.
“Speeding tends to be a driver behavior issue, as we have found drivers will drive the speed at which they feel comfortable driving,” Jones wrote in an email to DeCain and the Hinshaws last February. “Our studies have shown that lowering the speed limit without sound reason does not produce the intended effect of slowing motorists.”
That logic doesn’t take into account people pulling out of their driveways or side streets or walking along the road, Cindy Hinshaw says.
“Speeders may feel comfortable,” she said. “But those of us who live here don’t.”
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NCDOT did install larger speed limit signs, with better reflectivity at night and yellow panels on top that say “NOTICE” to make sure people know what it is. But the real solution, Jones told the Hinshaws and DeCain, is better enforcement.
“I do not anticipate long-term successful speed compliance without routine enforcement,” he wrote in April. “I do not have any further suggestions to get drivers to obey the speed limit when this road is already posted at 35 mph.”
That’s where Lt. Bill Harding of the Wake County Sheriff’s Office comes in. Harding and his small unit of traffic enforcement officers have been out on Howard Road several times in the last year, pulling over speeders. Harding said he recently spent an hour on Howard and stopped three drivers going between 49 and 53 mph.
But Harding says he and his officers can’t be there or anywhere else all the time.
“We’ll go out there, we’ll address the complaint, people will reduce their speeds,” he said. “Then a year later, they’ll call us back and say, ‘Hey, people are speeding again.’ It’s kind of frustrating on our end.”
Speed trailer warns drivers going too fast
One tool Harding uses is a speed trailer, which he parks at the side of the road. It displays the speed limit and the speed of approaching cars in digital numbers that flash if a driver is going five miles or more over the limit.
The trailer also records how fast each car and truck is going. Harding clocked nearly 50,000 vehicles on Howard over a two-week period last December and came up with an average speed of 31.3 mph (drivers coming out of driveways or side streets tend to go under the speed limit). He said 15% were going 41 mph or higher.
Harding brought the trailer back this month, and Hinshaw spent three hours sitting in her car watching the numbers. In that time, she saw 216 drivers pass the trailer above the speed limit, including 31 that were going at least 45 mph.
The Hinshaws and DeCain are frustrated being surrounded by the city but not able to take advantage of the traffic-calming efforts available to its residents.
“NCDOT is not interested in doing anything to help us. Not sure where we go from here,” Hinshaw wrote in a recent email. “Hard to think about the fact that if Howard Road was in the city limits, we would have a better chance for governmental help in addressing this issue.”
This story was originally published December 22, 2022 at 5:30 AM with the headline "Residents just outside Raleigh have fewer options for slowing traffic on their streets."
