The Wrong Place...At The Wrong Time...

Sometimes you don't have to go far to find the news. Sometimes, it comes to YOU.

It was the lead story at 10PM last night, and again at 11 (on WPTA anyway) about an 11 year old girl who was killed in a 2 vehicle crash on the city's (notorious) SOUTH side. WANE did NOT lead off with it, and I can tell you from first hand knowledge, this accident was one that had ALL the "lookey-loos" out in full force coming from BLOCKS away (by car and by foot), like some perverse sideshow attraction at some two-bit carnival. It seemed like I was living in Compton, CA for a time last night.

You see, the accident happened in OUR area. The people that were in the blue Chevy Astro van happened to live within a stone's throw of OUR house in fact. It's been a long time coming, but as I have stated time and again in this blog, something of this magnitude was just itching to occur. And it finally did.
I haven't seen THIS many police, fire and EMS personnel in quite some time, I can tell you.

But here's the REAL story...it goes something like this:

The intersections around the area have few STOP signs...what they DO have are a plethora of YIELD signs, which are regularly ignored with a zeal unrivalled in human history. Add to this the fact that many corners have hedges higher than is allowed by city code. And these hedges are allowed to grow...and grow..and grow some more, until approaching the intersection becomes a study in patience. You creep UP to the corner, swiveling your neck from side to side in an effort to see far enough down the cross street to see if traffic is coming. Well, at least you do if you're a GOOD DRIVER (and you want to keep YOUR car for another week).

Apparently, good driving did NOT enter into this particular equation.



The minivan was struck by a black GMC Envoy (almost new) driven (if you can call THAT driving) by a SIXTEEN YEAR OLD, obviously travelling at a rate of speed in excess of the residential limit (judging by HOW SEVERE that "t-bone" to the passenger side of the van was). Now how f$cked up is that? All the passengers and victims were black, as were all the "friends and relatives" that came to the scene (which was cordoned off by yellow police tape for OVER TWO hours).

Now that brings me to my monthly emails to the FWPD concerning issues that caused accidents JUST like this one, namely SPEEDING as well as the height of the hedges in the area. And when it comes to the speeding in THIS area, regardless of the time of day, I quaintly refer to it not so much as "driving fast", but rather "flying low".

I have had Captain Tom Bandor over to my house to discuss the foliage issue a few months ago, and his hands are basically tied (for now), because it's not a "code" issue, but more a "zoning" issue (regarding "foliage"). If it's a LAWN, he CAN handle it (and DOES), but as far as hedges/shrubs go (front OR back of a property), it's not his "animal"...yet. He IS working hard to CHANGE that, and will go before city council soon with amendments to ordinances and other suggestions that will allow his department to affect the needed changes, making the neighborhoods HERE safer to navigate. And Christ KNOWS we could use more of THAT!

Every month without fail, I email the quadrant captain with statistics I compile regarding things such as speeding, traffic "patterns", drug deals, etc. I have been saying for several months now that the incidents of speeding has increased significantly, and needs to be addressed. Since school has let out, we need this more than ever.
Posted signage with speed limits would be nice, taking down a lot of the YIELD signs in favor of more 4-way STOP signs would be another way to add safety to driving the streets here, as would changing some streets to ONE-WAY only, because like I have stated before (here), these streets are not really meant for TWO-WAY traffic, especially when some homeys are hanging out in the middle OF the street, chatting up some of the "brothaz".
Add some parked cars along the curbs, and you have a street that is BARELY navigable in ONE direction, let alone TWO, and definitely not able to be driven at any high rate of speed.

But the rub comes from having to secure a 75% majority of "neighbors" to agree to a change of directional traffic, and again, as I have said here..."that dog just ain't gonna hunt". So any call to traffic engineering (from me) is not going to be taken all that seriously.
But something NEEDS to be DONE.
I said it would probably take the death of some child to realize this, and this is one of those times I HATE BEING RIGHT. But it's not as though I couldn't see this looming on the horizon. I KNEW it was coming...it was only a matter of time (and that time occurred about 6:10 PM last evening).

Curiously enough, the people in the blue Chevy van ALSO included the girls (in a group of twelve total) that were hanging in the MIDDLE of the intersection of Maple Grove and Warsaw several nights earlier, swearing like longshoremen, with every other word being *F* and *N* (refer to FWPD control # 95704 dated 9 July - 20:04:48 hours) So these children are not as "innocent" as they would have everyone believe.

They were in fact some of the NOISIEST kids I've seen (and heard) in many years. And with little (if any) parental supervision, they would be OUTSIDE until after 2AM, running around the area. It would NOT surprise me that any of them were even wearing seatbelts. They just don't strike me as the type. I even saw one smarmy white guy grab for HIS seatbelt to "buckle up" when he was nearing the accident scene (just is case the PD looked at his SUV...what a toad)!

Sometimes the axiom of "Those who live by the sword, die by the sword" is played out with a harsher reality than we care to admit.
This happens to be one of those instances.

And perhaps NOW...the city will do SOMETHING, as I said they should have LONG ago... All they have to do is ASK ME if they need any HELP in this matter.

I'll be waiting.
I, also (as usual) won't be holding my breath.