One County Commissioner described the county’s inability to address the problem of speeding vehicles on a West Point-area road as a “failure.”

“This is very embarrassing because we’ve been working on this Adams Road for over two and a half years and it looks as though we’ve made no progress at all,” said County Commissioner Ken Smith at Friday’s commission work session.

Adams Road has become a popular cut-through for out-of-town employees at the Kia site, and has caused significantly increased traffic with many vehicles speeding and an increase in speed-related wrecks. Residents came to commissioners last month seeking solutions, including lowering the road’s speed limit to 35 mph, but have not had relief from their traffic woes.

Smith said a speeding car hit and severely damaged a county street sweeper Thursday on Adams Road. The driver was an employee of Kia, resident of Muscogee County and driving with a suspended license, County Engineer James Emery said.

“If we’re going to fix this road, then we need to make it a gated community or something, because this is downright pathetic,” Smith said. “… We have failed miserably on this road, pertaining to speed.”

Emery said counters put out by the county have shown that peak hours of traffic are during shift changes at Kia. It also has recorded about two readings per day of a vehicle going more than 80 mph, which may be one driver going to and leaving work.

The counters also showed that at one location, more than 10 percent of the vehicles on the road were going more than 11 mph over the speed limit, and another location showed 46 percent going 11 mph over the limit. Emery said his department planned to present the information gathered to the sheriff’s department Monday.

Wayne Bartley of Adams Road said he thought the road should be closed to through traffic during shift-change hours. He said that the perpetrators are not Troup County taxpayers, so they should not have to afford them a shortcut to work and home.

Adams Road resident Hunter B. Searcy said the radar speed display sign at the corner of his yard shows vehicles speeding, but people continue to breeze past it without regard. He’s also seen few cases of speeders pulled over by state troopers or sheriff’s deputies.

“We need a permanent solution,” he said.

Bartley added: “We don’t intend to let this rest until we get a solution.”