A Pasco County family is working to make one of the area's most dangerous roads a safer place to drive.
Moon Lake Road has been the scene of some of the worst crashes in Pasco County. Several crosses mark the spots along the road where lives have been lost.
For Christine Gilmore and her husband Mike, who used to drive on the road to get to work at the gym they own, the sight of those crosses is painful. One of them is in memory of their 17-year-old daughter, Courtney Little.
Courtney and her friend, Kimberlee Kathy Markou, 16, were driving on Moon Lake Road in July when their car spun out and wound up in the path of an oncoming pick-up truck. Both girls died at the scene.
"The road is very dangerous," Mike Gilmore said.
Gilmore isn't just speaking from experience. A road audit report issued after their daughter's fatal accident showed that from 2010 to 2012, a total of 155 crashes and 51 injuries were reported. Seventeen of those crashes happened at the intersection where Little and Markou were killed.
The report also found over 20 issues with the road, including unpaved shoulders and pavement rutting.
The family is now calling for the county to finish a project meant to widen the road that was halted years back. However, county officials said the project was meant to address the projected population growth in the county, not safety concerns.
"That growth has not materialized, so we don't need to widen the road," County Administrator Michele Baker said. "We are looking to hold off until 2026."
Baker said they are in the process of recommending to the board that the county add some shoulders, resurface the road and add audible pavement markers, an interim project that is expected to cost the county $2 million.
But County Commissioner Jack Mariano has plans to make the road safer.
"We can look to do other things," he said. "This is in our capital improvement plan. We do want to redo the road."
The county said they've already added some signs to the road and plan to add more in the next six months.
For the Gilmores, who have started a Facebook page about their efforts and who have already received overwhelming support, those signs are not enough.
"That should have been done on a dangerous curve a long time ago, and it doesn't do anything," Mike Gilmore said.
But the Gilmores said they plan to keep working in hopes of preventing another family from having to experience the same tragedy as the one they are going through.
"If I'm not the voice for the people who are getting hurt on the road, then who will be?" Christine Gilmore said.
County commissioners are expected to discuss Moon Lake Road improvements at a board meeting next week. Several loved ones of victims plan to attend.