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May 11, 2005

A need for speed?

Below is a column I wrote that appeared in the Sunday (May 8) High Point section.

It's about a common issue y'all probably face as well: speeders in your neighborhoods.

Our streets are city streets. So, no speed bumps. These, city folks say, could be an impediment to emergency vehicles. Children at Play signs? Nope. They just give kids a false sense of security, luring them to the dangerous asphalt (so the powers that be say).

Does anyone have any good ideas for dissuading neighborhood speeders?

Will you frikkin' slow down, already?!?
We put up those 25 mph signs in the neighborhood six months ago, and you are STILL speeding! This is High Point, not Martinsville or Talladega!
OK, OK. Let me catch my breath here.
I thought I was buying a home on a nice, quiet street. But there are times when I'd swear on a stack of Kelley Blue Books that Beacon Ridge Drive moonlights as the Daytona International Speedway.
I'm a dad now. People who treat two-lane residential streets like dragstrips transform me from a sweetheart of a guy into a foul-mouthed creep who wants to use his riding lawn mower for a road-rage incident.
The speed limit signs we petitioned the city for haven't dissuaded drivers a bit.
My neighbors and I talk informally about the situation in Waterford Meadows.
"I'm sure it's not one of us," one of us will say.
"Yeah. It's probably just kids."
"Harrumph. These kids today."
Later, when I get home, I ask myself: When did I become a grown-up?
Sometimes, I have fantasies about doing something extreme to make drivers slow down.
You know how high schools sometimes take junk cars, put them on school grounds and use them to scare teens into staying sober while behind the wheel on prom night?
I've considered something similar: putting a stack of junked, twisted bicycles in my front yard and covering them with red paint. And next to them a sign: Slow down and save our children's lives.
Of course, I would never do this. It's a bit, oh, melodramatic. My wife and neighbors would kill me. The stack of bikes would be a pain to mow around. Someone from the television media would probably come out and start filming my front yard.
And it probably wouldn't slow anybody down.
I don't know what to do. I hate admitting that I've gone from cocky kid who flies low on four wheels to curmudgeonly old guy who fears for his son's safety.
But there it is.
Do you face this in your neighborhood? Have you done something clever and innovative to change the situation? If so, shoot me an e-mail.

Posted by at May 11, 2005 9:47 AM

Comments

Boy Justin, you're not kidding about the speeders. I keep waiting for the guy with the checkered flag to come down my street--you'd think it's NASCAR. Since when did 25 mph mean 45 mph?

I really don't have any clever answers for this, but I thought I saw on TV that in some Florida county, law enforcement is giving citizens those speed guns that the police use to catch speeders.
Now could really be a double-edged sword, but everytime I see a car, truck, or mini-van zoom down my street, the idea becomes more appealing...

Posted by: SC at May 14, 2005 8:19 PM