The 70 km/h speed limit reduction sign on County Road 22 at the south end of Peltons Corners.

Peltons Corners resident Sherry Potter is speaking out about the dangerous driving through her community, after she and her husband estimated that they have observed cars travelling between 130 and 140 km/h on County Road 22. “We’ve dubbed it the Indianapolis Raceway,” she joked. 

County Road 22 is a connection for several hamlets, stretching all the way south to provincial highway 401. All of the other hamlets along the route, as well as sideroads such as Townline Road, Kennedy Road, and Whitney Road, all have speed limit reductions to 60 km/h. It therefore doesn’t make sense to Sherry that Peltons Corners, as the most populated of the hamlets, only has its speed limit on County Road 22 reduced to 70 km/h. She is pushing for the speed limit in Peltons Corners to be reduced to 60 km/h, consistent with the other hamlets, though she pointed out that she doesn’t actually expect drivers will go that slow. Instead, she hopes that a lower speed limit would tame speeds on the road to a more reasonable level of 70 to 80 km/h, rather than the speeds of 90 to 100 km/h that she has been seeing within hamlet limits. 

“People go so fast that they pass me on the right,” Sherry said. “It’s getting outrageous.” She talked about how schoolchildren waiting for the school bus in the morning have had to step back, with some even ending up in the ditch, as a result of the erratic driving. Domestic animals who have wandered away from their yards have been killed, which Sherry believes would not have happened if the drivers were going slower. In one tragedy that occurred in recent years, an elderly man was killed at the intersection of County Road 22 and Pelton Road when he was attempting to turn. This incident highlights for Sherry the need for action to be taken, particularly with the heavy traffic from dawn until dusk, even on the weekends. 

Recently, during the Ride for Dad event, Sherry reported that over 400 motorcycles passed through town nonstop, and they were not doing the speed limit either. “They were having a hoot,” she said. Sherry and her husband used to ride motorcycles as well, so her feelings have nothing to do with motorcycles, and everything to do with the need for responsible driving. She reports that many transports travel the route, and that they don’t slow down either. “It’s not the highway, it’s a beautiful highway,” she said. “It’s the drivers, they should slow down and enjoy the drive.”

Sherry is attempting to persuade the United Counties of Leeds and Grenville to lower the speed limit, but so far she has not had any luck. The Municipality of North Grenville did recently lower the speed limit to 40 km/h within a new local subdivision, but the Municipality does not have control over speed limits on county roads. Whether Sherry will have her concerns addressed remains to be seen, though she is not likely to stop pushing anytime soon. 

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