They were not
accidents.
Every one of them was somewhere they had every right to be, on a road that was not built to let them survive it.
John H. Oakes Jr.
68 years old · October 11, 1955 – August 1, 2024 · Struck on Highway 17 near Wesley Road
He took the same walk every afternoon, circling his small community in Murrells Inlet. He was on the state's Greenway Walkway when a car traveling 55 miles an hour hit him. The nearest place to cross safely was two to three miles away. He died two days later.
His daughter Chrissy started Safer 17.
“Fifty-five miles per hour, guys. Do you know how fast that feels when you're walking and you feel the wind of the cars?”
Chrissy Oakes · Smart Growth America press briefing, July 2026Nine of these belong to families we have not met.
Ten people were killed walking this corridor between 2022 and 2024. Nine died in the dark. Their names are in news reports and obituaries. We could copy them here. We have chosen not to.
A name on a memorial page is not the same as a name in a news story. It puts someone’s father inside an argument about a road, and their family never asked for that. The places stay open until a family tells us otherwise.
And not only for people on foot. Anyone killed in a crash on this road belongs here — drivers, passengers, riders. It failed all of them.
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John H. Oakes Jr.
68 years old
Oct 11, 1955 – Aug 1, 2024
Near Wesley Road - Held open2022–2024
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If one of these is yours, the line is waiting for whatever you want on it — or for nothing at all. Write to us and it is yours.
Add someone to this page.
If you lost someone on Highway 17 and you want them remembered here, we would be honored. Nothing is published until you've seen it and said yes.
The best memorial is a road
that stops doing this.