Speeding in the neighborhood
Categories: Places to go, Playground bureau
Yesterday, summer lurked in the air. It was the first day I could smell the mini daisies in bloom on lush April-rained grass, in the air I located the tinge of barbecue, summer night swims, and sea-salt crusted legs. I turned off my computer a little earlier than usual and slapped SPF four million on the pasty paleness of my son and I: we were going to walk down to the beach, inhale the promise-filled air.We were about halfway down the rolling hill to a small ocean-front park when a dark blue station wagon almost knocked us clean off the road, halting haphazardly on his brakes at the last possible section. I don't know why, but our quiet residential street does not have sidewalks. We need to walk tight to the grass of the houses when we're going anywhere. Though traffic is light, there are a lot of blind corners, and this particular station wagon has almost knocked us over before.
.
Resisting my instinctive urge to flip him the bird, I instead took my son by the hand and stepped out into the road so I could follow what house Mr. Inconsiderate Driver belonged to. I'd seen him speeding on numerous occasions and that near-miss was too close to home: I was going to drop him a note.
The walk to the beach was beautiful after that -- both Nolan and I have a little sun on our noses -- but I was a little angst filled about the impending note. I wanted to be polite and not passive aggressive and avoid provoking any anger.
Dear Neighbor, I wrote, I've noticed that you're in a hurry around these quiet streets at times and this afternoon you came pretty close to hitting my son and me. I wanted to respectfully ask you to slow down, if you don't mind, as my son and I take frequent walks around here and there are no sidewalks.
Now that I look at it, it seems a little lame. Once a speeder always a speeder? If anything, this reminds me to take it very easy in residential neighborhoods myself -- you never know what's around that corner
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
eugene 5-06-2008 @ 4:47PM
In my neighborhood, not only are the streets unsafe, but so are the parking lots. Too many times I've been walking my son to the market or book store and some a-hole comes speeding down the parking lot, talking on their cell phone or talking to a passenger. There's no reason to be going 20 mph in a parking lot.
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amanda 5-06-2008 @ 11:21PM
This is a chronic problem in the small town quiet neighborhood where I live. I am currently lobbying the town council for a "Slow children Playing" sign, or anything to help. My kids yell at cars to slow down every day. It is very worrysome.
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Erik Sagen 5-07-2008 @ 8:28AM
This occurs every once in awhile in our neighborhood. Usually it's just a teenager without a care in the world. Your post kind of took me back several years to my own childhood and a speeding motorcycle.
My Dad became so fed up with this guy that one night he decided to lay a track of tacks on the street. Around 2am we heard a powerful screech and saw the man lying on the sidewalk, somewhat confused, but he propped his bike back up and continued on his way.
We only heard from him once or twice after that and then nothing. Looking back it could've been a lot worse (for both him and us) but it just goes to show people will go to great lengths to silence an annoyance.
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eugene 5-07-2008 @ 12:13PM
Something like this happened in the neighborhood I grew up in. Some guy would routinely roar through our quite suburban subdivision and the neighbors got tired of it. they put a chain up at neck height between opposite street lamps and close lined the guy.
At least thats the story they told me when I was 5...
maria 5-07-2008 @ 11:32AM
I would suggest you go a step further and see how to get sidewalks. The issue of sidewalks has turned my husband into a community activist. In our case, there is a county fund and he is championing efforts to get our insufficient sidewalk situation fixed. He can be credited for completion of many sidewalks in our neighborhood b/c of his advocacy and learning the system. It's a headache - but as a taxpayer - you should have side walks.
Also - I think a polite note is a great first step. Always start out polite - we can all be clueless and unthinking at times. If you get a negative response, well you know - but you also know you began kindly.
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Allysen 5-07-2008 @ 12:23PM
Your note isn’t lame, it’s polite and gets the point across. Hopefully he’ll respect what you had to say and slow down.
We live in a lovely little area close to a river and walking paths. Our neighbourhood was plagued by an influx of teenagers who hung-out at one house in particular. They drove like morons through our child infested streets. Several calls were placed by us and our neighbours to the police about their reckless driving. The police stepped up patrols and that seemed to help for a while.
The neighbourhood breathed a collective sigh of relief the day the ‘for sale’ sign went up on that house, things have been much quieter since they moved and our children are safer.
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Geoff Miller 5-08-2008 @ 1:54PM
What are children doing playing in the street to begin with? Streets are for vehicles, not children (or any other sort of pedestrian, joggers included). Any parent who allows his children to play in the street is guilty of negligence and child endangerment.
Incidentally, the term is "clotheslined" -- the idea, of course, being that a length of clothesline is employed for the prank. Some people were recently arrested in my area for doing that to a couple of motorcyclists for no apparent reason (they didn't have a habit of riding fast through the neighborhood or making excessive noise). Monofiliament fishing line was used in that case.
eugene 5-09-2008 @ 3:38AM
Thanks for the clarification on the term. Having never done it, nor thought about such an act, I hadn't done much research on it. What you say makes perfect sense though.
As to your question on "playing in the streets"... well, my street in the suburbs doesn't have signals or a crosswalk, so when we wanted to go visit our neighbors, we would "jaywalk". I suppose my parents should have been more diligent and driven us across the street.
Sarcasm aside... kids don't always play in the streets, sometimes they're just crossing the street... or sometimes, kids being kids, will run out into the street after a ball or cat or whatever. As a driver you should be aware of your surroundings and oh yeah, following the speed limit. So yes, kids shouldn't be "playing in the street" but drivers shouldn't recklessly be speeding down neighborhood streets.
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