Randy Frump is meticulous about his stretch of Highway D. He tends the garden weekly along the road. His mums are bright yellow and orange. A neat rock circle and red-stained cedar mulch frame a large white cross in the middle, along with American flags and a St. Louis Cardinals baseball banner.

"This is my therapy," said the Defiance resident, surveying his adopted plot. "This is where I'm at my best."

He remembers sitting at his computer Jan. 1, cup of coffee in hand, when car doors slammed. He glanced out the window to see two state troopers with rimmed hats and grim faces walking up his driveway.

"I knew it then," he said.

He adopted the area where his 26-year-old son, returning from a downtown hotel that day, left the road and flipped four times. The freshly painted white cross reads, "R.I.P. Bryan Frump."

"I just hope people driving this road see it and realize how dangerous these roads are," said Randy Frump, who lives in the nearby Ridgefield Farms subdivision.

Randy Frump and other parents are on a mission to add shoulders and make other safety improvements to state highways from New Melle to Defiance, including highways D, DD, F, Z and 94. They and St. Charles County Council President Joe Brazil, R-District 2, will meet with state officials in a town hall meeting at 6:30 p.m. Thursday at the New Melle Sports and Recreation Center, 4700 Highway Z.

Since Jan. 1, those highways have accounted for seven of 21 fatal accidents in St. Charles County. Highway DD could stand for "doubly dangerous." Consistently, its accident rate more than doubles that of other two-lane highways, said Jim Gremaud, area engineer for the Missouri Department of Transportation.

Safety has been an issue on these highways for years, said Sherry Cybularz, a Defiance resident. That's why she started Shoulders for Safety, a Facebook group with nearly 500 members. Her sons are 13 and 15, and she worries about the day they get drivers' licenses.

"We're just trying to bring attention to our cause," Cybularz said.

Highways not built for heavy traffic

The highways handle anywhere from 2,000 to 8,000 vehicles a day, according to MoDOT traffic studies. That includes dump trucks from three nearby quarries and a steady stream of school buses.

Larger vehicles cause problems in the narrow lanes. Gremaud said most of the lanes are 10.5 feet wide with no shoulders. Standard lane width is 12 feet wide, he said.

"These roads were built 60 to 70 years ago. They were dirt roads that became gravel roads and served largely rural areas," Gremaud said. "They were never engineered. They're suitable for slower-speed traffic like a horse and buggy."

One area along Highway D has an 11-inch drop from the pavement to the ground.

"You go off there at 55 miles per hour, and you're not getting back onto the road," Randy Frump said. "I've done some research on the Internet, and by far the majority of the accidents, the right tire goes off the road."

Drivers run off the road or overcorrect into oncoming traffic or off the other side of the road, he said. Bryan Frump's truck tire went off the road. He overcorrected and the truck crossed the road, went into a 5-foot-deep culvert and flipped.

In April, a school bus' right front tire slipped off the road and the bus ended up in a ditch. There were no serious injuries, but five Francis Howell Middle School students were treated for minor injuries.

Gremaud said one part of MoDOT's vision is improving minor roads such as D and DD. The plan includes better signs, paved shoulders and rumble strips.

"We'd like to do that on 4,500 miles of our busier roads, including D and DD," Gremaud said. "But it really comes down to funding."

He said improvements on one mile of Highway D cost about $400,000. With 60 miles of the narrow, two-lane highways winding through St. Charles County hills, he figures it would take about $25 million to fix them all.

Brazil said the repairs should be pushed to the top of MoDOT's to-do list.

"MoDOT's funding is based on priorities," said Brazil, who used to live on Highway F. "The perception needs to be that this a priority."

Drivers have 'nowhere to go'

Police patrols aren't the answer, said Kyle Frump, 23, Bryan's brother. There's no place for police to sit and conduct radar patrols. Without a shoulder, pulled-over cars become another road hazard, he said.

Gremaud said the highways have hills, curves, blind spots and an abundant deer population. Randy Frump said every driver in his home has hit at least one deer while driving.

"You can do everything perfectly, and it doesn't matter," Kyle Frump said. "You come over a hill and someone or something could be in your lane. You have nowhere to go."

Francis Howell High School, at the intersection of highways D and 94, draws plenty of young, inexperienced drivers, Kyle said.

Shannon Follwell lost her daughter, Brianna Carron, 16, on March 1 in an accident on Highway D not far from where Bryan Frump was killed. Follwell's 3-year-old daughter, Cloe, talks about Brianna each day, she said.

"She talks about her sissie every day," Follwell said. "She couldn't sleep for weeks after the accident. I had to explain to her every day why she couldn't see her sissie. 'Where is heaven? Why can't I go to see her there?'"

Local teenager loses life on DD

Each accident reopens fresh wounds. Elise Sunderhuse, 16, was killed Sept. 3 when the car she was riding in left the road and hit the Ridgefield Farms brick subdivision sign on Highway DD. Kristen Ottinger, Bryan Frump's fiancee, said she heard the accident from Randy Frump's house, where she now lives.

"For a good week, we saw people bringing flowers and standing there crying," she said. "It brought back all those memories. You just want to get out of the car and hug them."

Follwell said her 13-year-old son, Matthew, was riding in a bus that was stopped for an hour as emergency crews responded to the scene. Roads shut down during accidents because there's no place to go. Later, he walked up to see the scene.

"It's horrible to hear an ambulance," said Follwell, a nurse who realized her daughter was dead when an ambulance pulled away from Brianna's accident scene with no sirens. Now, when she hears a siren, she checks on friends and loved ones.

Follwell and Randy Frump said they have vowed to do everything they can to see that the roads are improved in their community.

"I know in my mind and body and spirit that if there were shoulders there, my daughter would be alive today," Follwell said.