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Photo by Christopher Lugo/Staff A stretch of road on the Cullasaja Gorge.
On Friday, local Highlander Jennifer Linsey said her life flashed before her eyes as she had to swerve into a ditch on the Cullasaja Gorge as a Dollar General commercial vehicle barreled towards her.
Early in the morning on Friday, as Linsey was headed towards Franklin on the gorge road, she said as she turned a corner, a commercial vehicle was completely in her lane, forcing her off the road.
“If we wouldn’t have stopped, we would have gone under the truck,” Linsey said. “The worst part is that the guy didn’t stop. He continued to move forward. I stood there with the horn blaring for three minutes, screaming profanities.”
As she pulled into the ditch, Linsey said the only thing on her mind was keeping her kids in the car safe.
“The only thing on my mind was keeping my kids safe,” Linsey said. “So, we had to pull off road, into the ditch. The thing is, there’s only an extra tire of space before you hit the rock. We were within inches of hitting the rock and the guy hitting my window. Looking back, I wish I would have gotten out, blocked the guy in and called the police.
With the fines for commercial vehicles going up and down the gorge only set at $300, NC Highway Patrol said trucking companies are willing to take the fine.
“I talked with Highway Patrol and they told me that they pull them over all the time, but the fines are nothing to them,” Linsey said. “They said it is not worth it for the drivers to stop. They don’t care. They are carrying a $40,000 load, so a $300 ticket is nothing to them. That is why they continue to do it.”
With NCDOT not having a solution to the problem, Linsey said she is looking at starting a legal petition, but in order for legislatures to get involved, she said petitions have to have upwards of 10,000 signatures.
“If I start a petition, highway patrol said they would be behind it completely,” Linsey said. “They told me that they think every highway patrol officer in Macon County would sign it. For the amount of signatures needed to get legislatures to notice it; we just don’t have the amount of people in our community, but I’m still going to do it.”
Some things that Linsey said could help the issue are adding a high beam blocking trucks and increasing the fines.
“There’s only so much that can be done,” Linsey said. “We already have lights telling them not to come up the road. I talked with highway patrol and they said there are plenty of turnarounds in Franklin and in Highlands. They just don’t care, because the fine is not sufficient enough. My situation was life threatening, and there should be bigger consequences outside of a $300 ticket. Many people have been hit there and have had property damage. It’s unacceptable. When is enough going to be enough?”
Linsey said this isn’t the first time she has met a commercial vehicle on the gorge road, but it will be the last time she takes that road.
“I am in Clayton right now, because I am scared to go down to Franklin,” Linsey said. “I’m not going to support driving down that road. It is not safe. If I didn’t have as much driving experience up here as I do, then I don’t know if I would have been able to handle that. I don’t know if somebody from the city would be able to handle that situation. I hope that we can band together as a community to do something, for the people here, but also for the visitors. There are a lot more of them than people who live here long term, and they are already freaking out about driving on that road as it is.”
Moving forward, Linsey said she planned on speaking with the Dollar General CEO during his Zoom meeting at Western Carolina University on Wednesday.
- By Christopher Lugo