Bennett Valley Road—a Perilous Racetrack?

By Steve Baker and Adrian Baker-Kang

On May 2nd around 6:00pm, I was doing some work inside our house on Bennett Valley Road when I heard an all-too familiar sound: another car wreck. It's an awful, sickening sound, because I immediately think of the people involved and how injured they might be. The wreck had knocked out power in the area. I called out to my wife Melania, and then went outside and ran down the driveway.

I saw an older Dodge van that had come around the sharp curve in the road and had smashed into the utility pole, snapping it in half. The van was laying on its side; debris was scattered everywhere. The driver - a dazed young man - was just crawling out through the broken-out front windshield and was being helped by one of the workers who had been doing some work on our house. I asked the driver if there were any other people in the van, and he said there weren't.

I flagged down traffic that was coming around the blind curve while the injured man was helped up into our driveway away from the broken utility pole, which was the cause of the crackling sounds and electric sparks up in the wires. Some other drivers had gotten out of their cars and helped to direct traffic, too. Melania brought a blanket and a pillow for him, and she and some other people were there to comfort him until EMT's arrived. They assessed and treated him and then took him to the hospital. At about 10:00 that evening, utility workers started to repair the damage, and power to the area was restored around 4:00am. 

On May 6, I heard another crash. I went down to our other driveway, and observed a wrecked Prius. The driver was out of the car and thankfully wasn't injured. It had been slightly raining, and an oncoming car had swerved over into his lane, and caused the Prius to wreck. Later, after the tow truck had taken the Prius away, I walked down and picked up pieces of debris left behind.

About two weeks after that, as I was pulling out of the driveway for an appointment, I noticed a vehicle across the street that appeared to be parked in a strange way up against a tree. As I passed it, I saw skid marks in the dirt. The airbags were deployed and I realized it had been wrecked. I called Melania and asked her to go check on it. She went down and saw that no one was in the car, and then called the Sheriff's office to advise them. (She confided she had approached the vehicle with trepidation, fearing the worst...I knew that feeling, and it's not pleasant)

The large oak tree across the road from us bears the scar of a wreck that took the life of a young man before we moved in. One time a guy crashed through the fence/gate of a field where a large bull and some livestock graze. The driver was okay; I alerted authorities about the need to fix the fence/gate ASAP to keep the animals from getting out on Bennett Valley Rd.  In the five years we've lived here, I've lost count how many wrecks I've seen on this stretch of road. Cars and trucks in ditches. Up against fences. Crashes. Ambulances, Police, Fire Department personnel, clean-up crews. People on stretchers. Occupants of crashed vehicles sitting and standing. This is basically a country road that many drivers use like a freeway. And it's always amazing that people think they can drive as fast on rain-slick roads as they can on dry roads. 

To be continued: In the upcoming September issue of the VOICE, Part 2 will consider solutions to the problem.