CHAMPION, Pa. — People who live near Pritts Distillery Road in Champion Township are calling for some changes after cars continue to get stuck on that road, which is not maintained in the winter.
Pritts Distillery Road is a part of the snowmobile trail in Pennsylvania, but GPS systems often route guests of Seven Springs and nearby condos to that road.
On Friday, a mother and her young daughter got stuck on that road.
“They were stuck, the car was absolutely snowbound,” said Dennis Lovell, who lives nearby.
Lovell said the mom and her daughter were going to a friend’s on Southwind Drive near Seven Springs. From his house, Google Maps says it’s a nine minute drive — if you take Pritts Distillery Road.
But, Champion Township doesn’t do winter maintenance on most of that road because it’s part of the snow mobile trail.
If you go too far in a car, the snow gets deeper, and the car will get stuck.
That’s why when his friend got a phone call that someone was stuck, Lovell and his friend, Jason Eshleman, took their snowmobiles, which also struggled at times.
“[We] managed to get down to them found them, were able to get them loaded onto the sleds, actually got their luggage too, and delivered them to their friend’s house a little bit later,” Lovell said.
This isn’t a new thing on Pritts Distillery Road.
In fact — another car got stuck Wednesday while Channel 11′s Andrew Havranek was at the base of the road. The township took a plow and another vehicle up to help that car get out.
Lovell and Eshleman, who spoke with Havranek on the phone, both said there need to be better signs to alert people to not take that road in the winter.
“I think the biggest thing is that we just need more signage that the road is not opened, or is part of a winter road that is not maintained,” Lovell said.
A township supervisor on scene Wednesday said they used to have signs, but have lost $500 to $600 worth of signs because he said kids stole them.
Lovell doesn’t think many of the cars that get stuck lead to life threatening situations because most of them get stuck in the first 100 yards of the untreated portion of the road.
But, he wants drivers to be aware.
“In this situation on Friday, the woman was able to get fairly far up the road, and could not go forward or backwards, and she had a long hike ahead of her,” he said. “It’s nobody’s fault, other than just blindly following the GPS.”
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