A citizen visited the Helper City Council on Thursday with a suggestion on how to improve the safety of those on the roads within the city. The citizen and her family moved to Carbon County in June of last year. They reside in Spring Glen and are in Helper often for the library, park, events and more.
She noticed a couple of intersections that are treacherous and tried to come up with a plan on how to address the intersections. Some of the intersections mentioned were on the corner of Janet Street and Welby Street, coming from the park to the pool and coming off of Highway 6.
The proposed way to make these intersections safer for those attempting to make blind turns were convex mirrors. With them, drivers would be able to see much easier if vehicles were coming in these problem areas.
There have been near-miss accidents in all of those areas and there is not a way to see the oncoming traffic unless you are actually in the way. A website was proposed to the council that sells the convex mirrors in different sizes. It is believed that a 24-inch convex mirror would allow to see adequately as far as movement and they cost would be $41.40 per mirror.
The mirrors are durable and meant to stand up to weather. They are typically in parking garages but can also be used externally. Mayor Lenise Peterman stated that a purchase of that amount does not require council approval; it is something that the public works department can purchase.
Councilman Gary Harwood said that he did not believe that the convex mirrors could be mounted on stop signs, and that they would likely also need to purchase poles for the mirrors. It was also explained that issues such as private property is why some of the stop signs are in the areas that they are.
Considerations such as vandalization, cleaning, maintenance and the like was discussed. An idea was also raised to initially purchase a single mirror to evaluate the success. Mayor Peterman said that they would have Mike Mastin, Helper City Public Works Director, begin to research the mirrors.