RUTHERFORD COUNTY, Tenn. (WTVF) — The school year has barely started and already three Rutherford County students have been hit by cars.
Police said one of the students hit was killed on the first day of school.
Now parents like Chuck Isbell are pushing Rutherford County leaders to lower the speed limits in neighborhoods.
Isbell's 13-year-old son Nate died almost instantly on Halloween Night 2020.
"A person was speeding — a distracted driver — hit him going 43 in a 35," Isbell said.
In 2021, Isbell got the Rutherford County Commission to lower residential speed limits to 25 miles per hour, just for that Halloween evening.
But now, Isbell said he and the group Walk Bike Nashville are pushing for more, especially after seeing what has happened to the three students in Rutherford County just since the start of this school year.
Isbell says he's asking leaders at the county and city level in Rutherford County to drop residential speed limits to 25 miles per hour year-round.
But he says — unlike the unified government in Nashville — things can be more difficult dealing with so many elected officials in Rutherford County.
"There are five cities and then there's the county; you have to get everybody to line up," Isbell said.
But it's a cause that Isbell says he'll keep fighting for.
