DE PERE, WI (WTAQ) – Brown County is using a noisy approach to help prevent accidents.
Rumble strips may be loud, but they are an attention-getter. So much that some De Pere residents like Duane Oudenhoven can’t stand them being right outside their window.
“It’s highly distracting. They start making noise, cars start coming through at about 5 in the morning. So it’s waking up way earlier than you wish,” said OUdenhoven.
Brown County highway commissioner Paul Fontecchio says the concerns are being heard, but safety is of the utmost importance.
“Where the bad accidents are happening. That’s where the failure to stop accidents are happening,” he said. “What the strips do especially if someone is texting and not looking up at the road. They give you that audio and that tactile that you feel it when you run over it on the road. You’re using other senses.”
Oudenhoven says there are other ways.
“We’ve got some data from the federal highway department that flashing LEDs have almost the same success as the rumble strips do slowing cars down.”
Fontecchio says the rumble strips reduce serious and deadly crashes at these intersections by 40%. And all of the intersections chosen have seen one.
About 15 strips went in this year and Fontecchio says he expects to add at least 10 more by next year.
