Dangerous I-26 entrance should be taken into account in fatal crash

In a Post and Courier letter to the editor Sunday, a Goose Creek resident responds to the recent deaths of Christine Akabidavis and her 15-year-old daughter, Cushire, in a wreck with a cement truck on Interstate 26. The reader describes the highway entrance near where the fatal wreck occurred as a long-standing hazard:

The freeway entrance lane does not merge into the three lanes of freeway traffic. Instead, it continues straight forward as a fourth lane at the far right of the freeway.

There is no signage that warns drivers that they need to merge to the left into traffic or will be forced to exit the freeway into the rest area. I have said to myself nearly every time I have used this freeway access that I should contact the S.C. Department of Transportation about this driving hazard, but I have never gotten around to it.

While nothing can bring back the lives lost, perhaps the recognition of this hazard can help bring the change necessary to make the entrance ramp safer for drivers.

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