Speeding vehicles cause concern at Ringgold bus stop

By John Crane

Published: November 20, 2008

Residents along U.S. 58, east of Danville, say speeding vehicles on the highway endanger their children when they are boarding and stepping off the school bus. One parent has the skid marks to prove it.

“They fly down through here nonstop,” Tammy Cassada, who lives at 4558 South Boston Highway, said Thursday afternoon during an interview at a bus stop close to her house. Cassada and neighbors were waiting for their children to arrive from school. 

“You see how fast these trucks are going — they don’t care,” Cassada said as transfer trucks and other vehicles whizzed by. A sign along the eastbound highway alerts drivers to a bus stop, but fast-moving vehicles narrowly avoid slamming into buses anyway, she said. 

Cassada’s two children ride the bus on the way to and from Dan River middle and high schools. On Tuesday, a transfer truck rear-ended another truck that stopped behind the bus, Cassada said. The incident left skid marks in her front yard. 

Other residents living on the stretch of U.S. 58 from Virginia-Carolina Homes to the Route 62 stoplight point to reckless drivers barreling along the highway heading east while buses are picking up students or dropping them off.

“We’ve seen many, many accidents on this highway right here,” Ronald Richardson, who lives at 4462 South Boston Highway, said as he waited for his daughter to come home from Dan River High School.

One Pittsylvania County official said he aims to help slow down traffic on U.S. 58. Dan River Supervisor James Snead said he will visit with residents today and take the matter to the Board of Supervisors.

Snead hopes the board will pass a resolution to ask the state to lower the speed limit from 55 to 45 mph in the area. The speed limit in the vicinity is 55 mph until just west of the Route 62 stoplight, where it drops to 45. 

Trucks and other vehicles reach up to 70 mph and have trouble slowing down in time for a stopped school bus, Snead said. The area’s hills make conditions there especially dicey, he added.

“The top of them hills can be pretty dangerous,” Snead said.

Cassada’s daughter, 11-year-old Brooke Cassada, said the situation makes her uncomfortable.

“I feel like if we get in a wreck, I’ll be injured really bad,” she said. “I don’t want to be hurt.”

• Contact John R. Crane at or (434) 791-7987.