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Woman pushes to make 421 safer
Parents were killed by a runaway truck
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Published: August 27, 2009
WILKESBORO - Tina Wiggins always gets a knot in her stomach when she drives along the base of the mountain on U.S. 421 in Wilkes County.
It is the spot where her parents, George and Johnnie Wiggins, died in October 2007, when a runaway tractor-trailer coming down the mountain skidded across the grassy median and hit an SUV carrying them and their best friends, Tom and Cheri Simon.
The Wigginses and Tom Simon died at the scene; Cheri Simon died two weeks later of her injuries. Tina Wiggins said she was pleased earlier this month to hear about new signs and other safety improvements planned along the steep five-mile section of the highway from the Blue Ridge Parkway in Watauga County to the base of the mountain in Wilkes.
But she said she doesn't think that the improvements are nearly enough.
Wiggins has started a petition drive asking for immediate action to improve the safety at the base of the mountain.
"Let's put something there to try to keep the vehicles from coming into oncoming traffic," she said. "That's my ultimate goal, because that's what's going to save lives."
Officials with the N.C. Dept. of Transportation say that a lane divider at the base of the mountain is one of the long-term solutions being looked at during a continuing feasibility study.
The short-term improvements include additional signs to better inform truckers about safety issues with the downgrade; a system to give CB-radio notification to truck drivers as they approach the slope; and a video-detection system that would immediately notify the DOT and emergency workers when trucks enter either of the two existing runaway-truck ramps.
It's estimated that the project will cost $160,000. Warning signs will be installed in the next few months, with the rest of the project being finished by mid-2010.
Curtis Isaac Mondy, the truck driver in the crash that killed the Wiggenses and the Simons, is in prison serving a three-year sentence for four counts of involuntary manslaughter.
Mondy said that his brakes failed, but authorities said that he was speeding at the top of the mountain and couldn't have made it down safely. He was going too fast to make it through the curve at the bottom.
Wayne Atkins, the DOT's Division 11 operations engineer, said that officials asked an engineering consultant to look at straightening that curve and to provide cost estimates. Putting in a concrete median or divider could also be part of the realignment.
One idea is to keep the upgrade lane where it is, and straighten the curve in the downhill lane, which would create more separation between the lanes, Atkins said.
Atkins said that the DOT wanted to get the short-term solutions in place as quickly as it could, while money was there for them, and then continue to work on the long-term solutions. The feasibility study should be finished soon, he said.
Money for the long-term solutions would likely be part of a future Transportation Improvement Plan, which can be a lengthy process.
While Wiggins said she applauds any safety improvements, she noted that the driver who killed her parents and their friends passed 11 posted speed- limit signs, numerous steep- grade signs, two runaway-truck ramps and a truck brake cool-off area.
She said that there will always be people who disregard the signs and break the law, but she wants to see an improvement that would keep innocent drivers from getting killed.
Wiggins is asking people to e-mail her at tinawiggins@hotmail.com to get a copy of a petition to sign and return. She also plans a petition drive in the near future at Appalachian State University in Boone.
She lives in Davie County, and her regular trips up and down the mountain now are to care for the home left behind by her parents. When she passes the spot where they died, she thinks that it's only a matter of time before other people are killed there, if something doesn't change.
"My goal is to prevent that," she said. "It may not bring them back, but it would give a little comfort.
"By their dying, we can prevent other deaths."
■ Monte Mitchell can be reached in Wilkesboro at 336-667-5691 or at mmitchell@wsjournal.com.
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