A few months ago, I did a story about a truck hitting a house in Sumner. The 18-wheeler strayed into a small, residential neighborhood and, in attempting to turn around, the driver backed his rig into a house and knocked one of the community’s mobile homes off its blocks.

According to the residents, this is not an uncommon occurrence.

It seems every now and again, some big ol’ truck comes streaming through a series of tiny sidestreets, past several “dead end” or “no outlet” or “no trucks” signs and ends up among the residences in a completely self-contained neighborhood with a single street in and out.

The neighborhood, Rainier Manor, is nestled cozily between state Route 410 and the Puyallup River. There is no business, no industry and no easy way to get into and out of it.

Yet these trucks continue to wind their way in and struggle to get out.

The trucks, apparently, are on a quest for the Costco warehouse in the city’s industrialized north end.

So assuming they are using one of the major highways that get you to and from Sumner from the rest of the world, how did they end up in Rainier Manor?

The answer, it appears, is in the address.

The Costco warehouse is at 4000 142nd Ave. E.

The neighborhood in which the truck got lost also happens to contain a small, one-block stretch of 142nd Avenue East, though it is unconnected to the larger road more than a mile to the north with which it lines up geographically and shares its names.

It appears as though the drivers of these lost trucks are simply following their GPS directions, which sees “142nd Avenue East” and sends them there.

The city spokesperson at the time of the accident said, “In this age of GPS, the navigation system does not negate nor override the driver’s responsibility to watch and obey traffic signs.”

She’s exactly right. There are too many stories of people simply following the GPS directions without paying any attention to anything at all. Last week there was a case in Bellevue of a woman driving into a lake because her GPS told here to turn where there wasn’t even a road.

But while it is difficult to disagree with the city’s sentiment, I can’t help but think back to a debate in the city I covered four years ago in my Sumner Reporter days.

Then-councilman Matt Richardson proposed allowing the city to go back to actually naming streets, instead of simply using the county’s grid system to assign the closest number to whatever new stretch of asphalt is developed.

Despite initial approval from several committees, the ordinance failed when the chief of police and the fire chief spoke before the council and made what I at the time reported as an “emotional plea” about safety and the possibility of slowing emergency responders as they searched for a street name.

I remember Richardson asking of the opposition “so you’re the last generation that gets to name any roads in this town?” and pointing out that if safety really were the primary concern, the city should do away with all street names, from Main to Wood to Academy to Cherry to anything that was not a number. In fact, most of the council at the time lived on a street with a name, not a number.

I also remember the assistant fire chief stating that they would find the house – that was their job. Since they’d have to learn a new street and its location anyway, a name or number was about the same.

But in the end, two councilmembers changed their votes after the two chiefs spoke of the potential for difficulty involving names versus numbers, especially with new guys or out-of-area support.

“I don’t want 30 seconds (delay) when my grandchild is at risk,” said one.

“I can’t support something I want to support because I am not going to be pointed at as someone who cost a life,” said another.

I understand the choice they made, but I didn’t think it was a particularly strong argument then and I don’t think it is now.

Besides, I like streets with names. They have character. Plus, it’s a good way to honor people in and from the community.

But maybe that’s because I come from a place where streets have names and not just numbers and the fire department and police still find us.

I hate the number system. It’s dumb, particularly for small roads. I understand the larger purpose of it, but it is still not a particularly good system, especially in a small rural community removed from the major thoroughfares.

And it just leads to confusion.

For example, how do you get to 218th Avenue East on the northeast side of Lake Tapps? Turn left on 214th. Stay on it. Congrats, you’re on 218th.

Oops; now you’re on 214th again. And now you’re on 210th.

How does that make any sense?

Plus, eliminating the must-number system would get rid of all the silly little “Avenue Court Easts” and such that litter this area because some roads don’t snap exactly to the grid.

It’s maddening.

In one neighborhood in Bonney Lake, if you turn off 200th Avenue Court East (which, if you continue straight, turns into 198th Avenue Court East with  no warning) on to 102nd Street East and just stay on it, you will veer left onto 201st Avenue Court East then veer left again on to 101st Street East, pass a small spur for 201st Avenue Place East and then veer on to 201st Avenue East before it ends back at an intersection with 102nd Street East.

Confused? Don’t be. It’s literally a single road that loops around with a small offshoot containing a few homes.

So why does it need three names so closely related? And how can that possibly less confusing or time saving than just calling the whole thing “Smithville Loop” or something else?

(Also, by the way, 214th Avenue East, which turns into 218th Avenue East which turns into 214th Avenue East and then into 210th Avenue East and then into 12th Street East which is then crossed by a small two or three block roadway named – you guessed it – 201st Avenue East…)

Finally, if the one block of 142nd Avenue East in Rainier Manor that does not connect at all to the road with the same name more than a mile to the north was named, say, Lybeck Drive (name chosen for the couple whose house was hit by the truck, though really any name will do; let’s call it Palmer Place, I don’t care…), then large trucks searching for 142nd Avenue East would never find their way into Rainier Manor.

I also have faith in our emergency professionals to study their maps and communities and to know the new roads when they are laid. Yes, it is certainly easier to have a general idea of where a road is if it has a number, but in a town the size of Sumner or Bonney Lake, names shouldn’t be that tough to learn either.

And it might even be the simplest, most common sense way – aside from the very obvious signs and orange flags, of course – to keep trucks out of residential neighborhoods.

Just a thought.