The new consolidated McCracken County High School had its first day of classes today and, as sheriff deputies expected, there was a high volume of traffic on the roads. Six McCracken County sheriff deputies were stationed outside the school this morning dealing with traffic back-ups as more than 1,500 students arrived. Sheriff Jon Hayden said there were officials from the Kentucky Department of Highways monitoring traffic flow and looking into alternate solutions.
“There may or may not be some adjustments in some of the engineering of the turn lanes and the traffic lights and things of that nature," said Hayden. "But all in all, I think things went well this morning. We had no accidents but there were some vehicles stopped for traffic infractions and some were stopped for speeding.”
Hayden said deputies still have to regulate traffic at county elementary and middle schools but the high school's student drivers pose a challenge. Hayden expects the highest volume of traffic to occur outside the school between the hours of 6:45-8:00 AM in the morning and 2:00 to 3:30 PM in the afternoons.