PORT ANGELES — Officials with the Driving 101 Traffic Safety Project unveiled a reader board on Friday about four miles west of Port Angeles that counts the days since the last serious accident occurred on the 32-mile stretch of highway that has seen more deaths on the North Olympic Peninsula than any other stretch of road.
On Friday, the electronic counter showed 19 days since the last serious collision.
On April 2, Hayley Haller, 17, of Port Angeles died near Mount Pleasant Road after her car ran off the highway and split in two, bursting into flames when it hit a billboard.
The new sign “will serve as a reminder to all of us to drive carefully at all times,” said Clallam County Sheriff Joe Martin, who helped unfurl the sheet covering the sign.
Although deaths on Clallam County’s share of U.S. Highway 101 have decreased since the corridor project started, State Patrol Capt. Mark Thomas, District 8 commander, said that Haller’s death served as a reminder.
“We have a lot of work to do,” he said.
The project began in December 2004 and aims to boost education, enforcement and engineering on the stretch of highway from the state Highway 112 junction, west of Port Angeles, to the Clallam-Jefferson county line east of Port Angeles.
The project corridor was the scene of four fatalities in 2005, compared to six in 2004.
So far, 2006 has had two fatalities in the corridor.
