This could have happened to any of us as teenagers: an 18-year-old driver and her 19-year-old passenger died in a car crash on Highway 47, north of Forest Grove Monday. The young Pacific University students were stopped at a stop sign on N.W. Verboort Road, and then “pulled into the path of a northbound box truck,” according to Washington County Sheriff’s Sergeant Bob Ray.

Neighbors say it’s a dangerous stretch of roadway: ”I don’t know how many people have to be killed there before something major changes; everyone’s always said there needs to be a light there,” Marilee Peters told KGW. Peters has lived near the intersection for 25 years.

ODOT has made changes. In 2005 they added turn lanes and four years later, they added streetlights to increase visibility at night. They also posted a sign along Veerbort Road that warns: Cross traffic on OR 47 doesn’t stop.

Rebecca Webb
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