YORK COUNTY, S.C. — The Chester County Sheriff’s Office, York County Sheriff’s Office, and South Carolina Highway Patrol are conducting a traffic enforcement blitz in April along Highway 72, a road officials say has taken too many lives.
Both counties are targeting reckless driving in the area. Officials cited more than a dozen people during special enforcement on Thursday morning and arrested someone for a DUI.
Sandra Potter, a local mom, says she lost her daughter Kaitlyn and unborn grandson in a crash on Highway 72 at the York and Chester County line in 2023.
“You wanna drink, fine, drink... don’t get in a car,” Potter said. “Don’t go and kill somebody else’s loved ones because you wanna drink and get drunk.”
Kaitlyn’s five and three-year-old, were also in the car when the crash happened. They were rushed to the hospital. Kaitlyn and her unborn baby died.
“The kids were excited they were gonna go get Christmas lights and they never got to,” Potter said.
Officers say a drunk driver veered off the road and hit them.
“People don’t think about that. They don’t think about even if not drunk going 99 miles down the road,” Potter said. “What if you have a flat tire? What if you hit a pothole. You can mess up a family’s life forever.”
In 2024, there were 96 crashes along Highway 72, one of them deadly.
“Some of those collisions were on days like today not raining -- it’s inattention -- it’s speed,” a spokesperson for the York County Sheriff’s Office said. “I need you to slow down, obey the speed limit. I need you to wear your seatbelt. I need you to get off your telephone,” a Chester County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson said.
Deputies from York and Chester will saturate Highway 72 on both sides all month.
Potter hopes the effort wakes people up.
“Just don’t kill anybody else, don’t hurt anybody else, don’t kill yourself,” Potter said.
The suspect in the 2023 crash that killed Potter’s daughter is still awaiting trial.
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