NEW COLUMBIA — A 58-year-old Mifflinburg driver was intoxicated before being killed Friday evening when his compact station wagon speeded around a curve, went airborne, hit an embankment and a tree, state police at Milton said.
Keith Allen Strouse, 5 Thomas St., was pronounced dead at the scene by Union County Coroner Wanda Walters after the 6:30 p.m. crash on New Columbia Road, about 40 feet east of Creek Road in White Deer Township, state police said.
Strouse was traveling west, and driving faster than the 40 mph speed limit, when he lost control of his 2006 Chrysler PT Cruiser on a right-hand curve, state police said. The car left the north berm and struck a walnut tree.
He was wearing a seat belt.
Although saddened by the accident, those who live along New Columbia Road on Saturday said speeding is a problem along the winding 3½-mile stretch between the Route 15 interchange and the White Deer Township municipal building.
While the speed limit varies from 35 mph to 55 mph along the stretch — which is flanked by cornfields and open fields — residents complained Saturday about drivers’ speeding in the 40 mph areas that are lined by homes.
“Even where it’s 55, they go 70,” said Candee McKee, who lives at 4040 New Columbia Road, just west of the White Deer Township municipal building.
“Some people come right up behind you, tailgating you.”
Eleven times the road changes from nonpassing lanes to permissible passing from the northbound lane, the southbound lane and both lanes in the 3 ½-mile stretch.
“They pass you in a no-passing zone,” McKee said. “I called police one time because I was almost in an accident. Someone passed me in a no-passing zone, cut in front of me, then slowed down real quick. It’s very unsafe.”
Jean Satteson, who with her husband, Doug, lives at 3511 New Columbia Road, said she no longer walks along the two-lane in front of her house.
“I’m afraid to walk that road,” she said Saturday. “Two to three years ago, a car was going east, hit a stump, and flipped into that field,” she said, pointing to an empty lot near her house.
The speeding problem intensified when New Columbia Road was repaved about three years ago, Jean Satteson’s husband said.
“That made it more of a speedway,” Doug Satteson said. “Cars go by 50 to 55 miles per hour” where the road is posted at 40 mph.
Virginia Reidle, who lives at 3434 New Columbia Road, says she has called police many times about the speeding problem.
“I’m afraid for anybody, any innocent driver. You can’t walk this road any more.”
Speeding on New Columbia Road “is outrageous,” Ray Comment, of 3891 New Columbia Road, said Friday night.
“They drive in excess of 60 and 70 miles per hour,” Comment said, “and there’s curves and bumps.”
Something has to be done, Reidle said.
“If I have to,” she said, “I will get a petition going.”
Strouse becomes the 16th person to die on Valley roads in 2009. In 2008, 29 persons died on roads in Montour, Northumberland, Snyder and Union counties.
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