We moved into our house 6 years ago. We had been eyeing this street for a few years before that and had not had the chance to buy on the street because the prices were out of our range. Finally, the original farmhouse for the platt came up for sale at a reasonable price. For good reason too, it was a renovation nightmare. But, I noticed the house across the street was for sale and we checked it out. It was listed as a rental with two units but was listed with 1 bathroom. I figured it was a mistake and sure enough, there was another bathroom in the second rental. The price was fantastic because it hadn't sold as a 1 bathroom house and just like stars lining up correctly, our other house got an offer the same day we put an offer on our house. (Actually, it was weird, while driving to the real estate agent's offer to put an offer on our house she called and told us there was an offer on ours.) The result was perfect and we purchased our new house on a quiet street with well manicured lawns.
The only problem with the street was that it did not have sidewalks but the speed limit was 20 mph and we looked at the house at several different times of the day, witnessing no major traffic concerns. We moved in just in time for Halloween and were converged upon by a group of 10 or 12, mostly parents, who came by to check US out. What they really wanted to know was whether or not we were going to rent out the basement. They skipped away jubilantly when we told them we weren't. Apparently, they took this as a sign that the neighborhood was going back to perfect harmony.
And then came the housing boom. We're all familiar with this boom and our neighborhood sold houses with amazing speed. Once the existing houses started to disappear like warm cookies, then developers started to add houses with infill projects. This added more people to the neighborhood, usually younger people with no families because the infill houses were smaller and more attractive to DINKS (dual income, no kids). This is where my blog topic steps in.
Over the last 6 years we have seen an increase of traffic on our street. It wouldn't be so bad if everybody just heeded the speed limit. Unfortunately, we now have about a dozen people who regularly speed down our 20 mph street at speeds well over 25 mph. The number of more aggressive drivers that get to our house at speeds over 35 mph is alarming. We asked the county for a traffic study. They recognized we had a couple of bad apples but nothing that warranted speed bumps. They did add a speed limit sign to the end of the street that didn't have one and had the home owner with the brush covering the original speed sign on the street, make the sign actually visible.
This might have changed a few driver's behaviors but there were still the bad apples. The ironic part of the new speed limit sign was that a speeding driver lost control of their car and took out some bushes AND the NEW speed limit sign not even ONE WEEK after the new sign appeared. The new speed limit sign was quickly fixed but it just highlighted the problem.
So, we still have the regular speeders down our street. When our oldest child goes to the neighbor's house across the street, both moms have to stand by the street and make sure all sets of children get across okay. We are on the ready to jump into the street at the mere sign of somebody not paying attention.
There is little we can do, except this one handy tool: our police department has an online reporting form we can use to report speeding drivers. Believe me, we're not even bothering with the 25-30 mph drivers and instead only reporting the ones that are WELL above in the 35-40 mph zone. You would think that there wouldn't be that many to report but I reported two last week and expect to report at least two this week. The police cannot be everywhere at once so it is our job as neighbors to protect the livability of our streets by taking reasonable actions on our own. We're not talking vigilante justice, just taking down the license plate number and filling out a form.
There is a real cost to speeding aside from just annoying and panicking moms and dads in residential areas. A speeding ticket includes a fine, double if you're in a school zone. Your insurance company then may start charging you a surcharge for having a damaged record. In some areas one ticket equals an extra $150 per year. Now, you're $50 fine is costing you $500.
There is another cost though. In 2005 the NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Association) reported 13,113 deaths from speeding related accidents. The drivers were not impaired, just driving too fast. See www.nhtsa.dot.gov for more information including a statistical analysis of 2008 driving fatalities.
The number of fatalities increases (obviously) when considering drivers who drive under the influence of any drug. The NHTSA has a good pdf on children and cars. Speeding with kids in the car or driving with kids while intoxicated amounts to child abuse and law enforcement is connecting many of those incidents with separate incidents of neglect. The correlation is unnerving but it really just comes down to: if you don't care about anybody on the road except yourself then you probably don't have much esteem for your own children as well.
Here we get to my big piece of aggravation. There is this kid on our street, we'll call him Timmy, and Timmy has some sort of mental delay. We think it's related to fetal alcohol syndrome and his adoptive parents try to do a good job keeping him under control. The truth is, Timmy bugs the crap out of me. From April through October this kid regularly jumps in front of my car with his hand held up like a traffic cops. When he's not jumping out in front of my car, he's riding his bike down the middle of the street without a care in the world and doesn't bother moving to the side of the street when a car approaches. I call this my "Timmy Aggravation" and have yelled at him on more than one occasion. This kid is going to get hit by a car one of these days and no matter how irritating this is, I just don't want to see a kid get killed on our street while I did nothing about the speeders. It says something about a person who is willing to watch illegal activity right under their noses and can calmly go on as if nothing was happening. If we want change, we have to recognize that change begins with us in all areas of our lives.
It makes a difference how you drive in residential areas. There are Timmy-types all over the country. Running over a kid is not like running over a squirrel. There are very real repercussions for hitting a kid and they don't stop with legal ramifications. The scars of killing or maiming a child while speeding carelessly on a residential street would haunt a person forever. It is time we all make a difference in our neighborhoods by being more careful about how we drive and taking the stand that speeding is not acceptable for any reason. If you have a true medical emergency that makes speeding required, you should call for an ambulance. Speeding is just not acceptable.
Timmy still bugs the crap out of me but I'm willing to do this even for him.
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