Rural roads a threat to drivers

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"Some of these roads are outrageous," he said, describing Jordan Road as plagued by potholes and poor maintenance. "They ought to do it right. You can't cure the cancer unless you get to the cause."

South Carolina's back roads are the deadliest in the country behind only Arizona and Florida, a national nonprofit transportation research group reported Thursday. That despite the fact that the fatality rate for urban and other types of roads between 1999 and 2003 was below the national average, according to TRIP.

It's not only a life and death problem for those who live here, but it can have significant impact on whether companies bring jobs to the state.

"One of the first things industry will tell me and tell anyone is, 'Without a really good highway system to move our people and their services, we have no interest in your state,'" said Sen. Hugh Leatherman of Florence.

"It's an economic development issue."

Kathey Bailey, who also lives along Jordan Road, said the fatality rates don't surprise her. She said there have been serious accidents at both ends of the road — the result of potholes that never get properly repaired and speed limits that are ignored.

"It's dangerous," she said.

Secondary roads in the state haven't been paved in four years as a result of budget cuts. State transportation officials say the annual shortfall in maintenance funds totals $560 million.

The lack of maintenance poses dangers for residents, officials have said. The state's roads not only need many repairs but also improvements to handle modern traffic, such as additional lanes, wider shoulders and guardrails.

Most of the state's roads — 25,000 miles worth — are secondary rural roads whose maintenance is not covered by federal transportation dollars. A proposal by U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint would give states more flexibility in how they spend that money.

State lawmakers vowed Thursday to find the money to make the roads safer.

"We absolutely have to give the Department of Transportation additional funds," Leatherman said. "It's needed. I will do everything I can to see that DOT gets additional funding."

Sen. Gerald Malloy, a Hartsville attorney and a member of the Senate Transportation Committee, said lawmakers have to begin debating extra revenue for roads before the state is sued for neglecting its safety needs.

"I think we have to consider safety as one of the most critical issues and make the sacrifice," he said. "Our citizens are more deserving than the patchwork maintenance that we have been giving them."

A spokesman for Gov. Mark Sanford said the state's rural roads might be in better shape if the Department of Transportation spent its money differently.

"There are a number of things DOT could do to use the money it has more efficiently," spokesman Will Folks said.

For instance, the state "could make quite a dent" on the maintenance of secondary roads, he said, if it used the $100 million slated for a nine-mile highway project called the James E. Clyburn Connector, which runs across the Santee River floodplain.

Nationwide, the TRIP report found that the fatality rate on rural, non-interstate roads was almost three times higher than on other types of roads. The rate on South Carolina's back roads differed even more — five times the fatality rate for all other roads.

Rural roads are more likely than urban roads to have two lanes, narrow shoulders, sharp curves, steep slopes and other hazards, the study reported.

Drivers also are four times as likely to be involved in fatal, head-on wrecks on rural roads than motorists on other routes.

The study recommended safety improvements, including rumble strips, better signs and pavement markings, better or new guardrails, adding median barriers, reducing the angle of curves, widening or adding lanes and resurfacing pavements.

In an attempt to make its secondary roads last longer, South Carolina has used a resurfacing technique for decades in which sprayed asphalt is mixed with crushed stone. Such "tar and gravel" roads as they are called are a third less expensive than normal pavement but the process has collected so many complaints in the past year that officials have considered suspending it.

Michael Covington, director of governmental affairs for DOT, said the fatality rate is the result of several factors, including low funding.

"We believe that South Carolina has fallen way behind the curve in modernizing these rural roads," he said.

Despite that problem, he said, the state has lowered its overall fatality rate and is attacking the maintenance problem on rural roads by offering 50-50 matches to local communities for improvements to rural intersections where many wrecks occur.

Leatherman, who chairs the Senate Finance Committee and leads Senate Republicans, said that the last time the Legislature increased fees for DOT was in 1987, when it raised the gas tax by 3 cents. He said he will consider any revenue proposal for the agency.

Mason said his road was given the tar and gravel treatment six months ago but now has potholes and safety hazards.

"We pay high taxes," he said. "Why can't we have something that is at least safe?"