The Morongo Grade is one of the primary routes into the Morongo Basin and the closest connection to Palm Springs and the 10 freeway. The road often sees closures due to major accidents.
On a recent episode of the Z107.7 Up Close Show, host Gary Daigneault spoke with Michael Radford and Jake Griffith of the California Highway Patrol. They discussed safety improvements made to the grade over the last several decades, and the best ways that you can navigate one of our area’s major thoroughfares safely.
Daigneault summarized some of the dangers of the grade, saying “But for some reason, people feel that the top of the grade is the beginning of a racetrack. What is that phenomenon?”
Officer Radford responded, “a lot of people think that if there’s any sort of slope, they don’t need to apply their brakes. That just means the speed limit is exempt. However, it’s not.”
“Speed limits are set for a reason and that’s after a lot of work. Engineers and Caltrans are the ones who set the speed limits, but they do a lot of studies, and the amount of people that drive through the area, the amount of pedestrians in the area, businesses, they’re not just arbitrarily choosing these numbers. They’re there for a reason.”
Daigneault said that the grade has gone through a lot of changes, including the implementation of a “K-rail” in the middle of the highway and work on some of the curves.
Radford said, “Since I was growing up here, the Morongo grade didn’t even have a divider, which is a very dangerous canyon area to not have a divider. Indian Canyon was a stop sign. I’m sure you remember that.
And then after I got hired they started making some additional improvements., Like in the Yucca grade area and the dividers that they’ve put in Morongo Valley., There were a lot of head-on crashes and those generally can be the most dangerous crashes and often end in a fatality. If you’re two vehicles traveling the opposite direction at high rates of speed, that force is extremely dangerous. So we’re happy that they did make those improvements in that area because it has decreased the amount of fatal traffic collisions.”
Officer Griffith said, “I remember some of us were skeptical about the barriers being put up, and specifically the Yucca grade, because it has limited our ability to do enforcement to an extent. But we have seen a decrease in head-on collisions and therefore fatalities. So I think it’s been a good thing.”
Daigneault asked the officers for their overall advice to drivers on the grade.
“Follow the speed limits,” said Officer Radford.
