Scott Swanson
Vern and Faye Tunnell have lived at 28495 Pleasant Valley Road, in a pleasant pocket on a curve along the country highway, for 33 years.
The curve is part of a serpentine stretch that winds along a hillside on the right as one drives north on the road, away from the intersection with Berlin Road. Although there are caution signs at the beginning of the sequence of curves on both ends, those unfamiliar with the road often find themselves hurtling into the Tunnells’ curve too fast, fighting to keep the vehicle on the road. A reporter experienced this the first few times he drove that stretch of road.
When the Tunnells first moved there, in 1978, Vern Tunnell recalls, they had a number of errant motorists wind up in their yard, which borders the road. Then the accidents stopped. He said they went for years without anyone missing the curve.
“I think what happened was the younger generation grew up,” Tunnell said. “There was quite a pause, then they started happening again.”
Faye Tunnell, who, her husband says, keeps close track of such things, has counted 25 accidents since they moved in.
“It’s worrying me because someone’s going to get killed if they don’t fix it pretty soon,” Vern Tunnell said.
The problem, he said, is that their curve is engineered incorrectly. He said county officials who visited the site late last fall, told him the curve is “very bad.”
“Instead of bringing you out of the curve, it brings you right into the house,” he said. “It’s just kind of how it comes down and around when it comes across the culvert.”
Darrin Lane, roadmaster and director of the Road Department, said his staff has to operate under guidelines established by the federal Standard Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices and the Oregon state supplement to those rules, which require a yellow 25 mph caution sign at the start of the curvy stretch.
“People are supposed to slow down, but because that’s a half-mile-long section of curves, they forget,” he said.
He said county officials have discussed cutting some trees that may block drivers’ views of the upcoming curve and putting up intermediate reminder signs.
“It’s signed correctly, but because of some heightened awareness, we’re looking at solutions to improve driver awareness,” Lane said.
Cathy Orcutt, Linn County Sheriff’s Office communications manager, said the department’s computer shows five reports of traffic crashes in the Tunnells’ area, four specifically tied to their address, since 2006.
“There are records for other crashes in the area but nothing specifically at or near this address close enough to consider,” she said.
Tunnell said that they have not always called the cops, sometimes just assisting drivers to get back on the road and picking up the pieces afterwards.
One recent driver took out some of Faye’s bushes, planted along the edge of their lawn. She cut them back and is waiting till spring to see if they survive.
Another driver plowed through their back yard last spring, demolishing their pumphouse and actually hitting the rain gutter on the corner of their dwelling.
Vern Tunnell points to where a truck left damage on the corner of his house after a driver, unable to negotiate the curve, ran across his yard.
Still another took out their cherry tree.
“We’ve had some close calls – four in the yard,” Tunnell said. “We’ve heard some others, but we just see tracks where they slid in the gravel. Some, you can hear their tires squealing.
“They come around the corner and if they lose control, they come into the yard or roll over in the trees across the street. We’ve had a couple of them run. They leave tracks and tear up stuff in the yard. Fortunately, with the police’s help, we’ve caught them all through the years.”
He said he’s had Sheriff’s deputies tell him that they “almost lost it” when pursuing suspects down Pleasant Valley Road.
Another concern, he said, is motorcycles.
“They come through here towards Lebanon, just flying. I expect to find one of them dead one of these days.”
Meanwhile, Tunnell decided to take matters into his own hands as five different drivers have run into their yard since Memorial Day weekend.
After a truck barely missed their house last spring, he went to last fall’s Little Promises Preschool auction, and bid on and bought three large decorative boulders, which he has spaced out along the edge of their yard, to provide a barrier against wayward vehicles.
“I put the boulders in the yard because if I don’t do it, somebody’s going to get me pretty soon,” Tunnell said.