Maybe slow down a tad?

Rant. hocoblogs@@@

I live in the community of Mayfield Woods. The main road that goes through the neighborhood is Mayfield Avenue. Like many neighborhood roads, the posted speed limit on Mayfield Ave is 30 miles per hour. Also like many neighborhood roads, the speed limit seems to be a mere suggestion to a lot of people.

As you can see from the above image, Mayfield Avenue connects to Routes 108 and 103. Their are a lot of other neighborhoods and businesses along both of these roads, and Mayfield Ave is a popular choice to cut between them because it has a stop light at 108. As a result, we see a lot of through traffic.

A couple years ago the county finally installed some speed humps after enough complaining from residents, and also (I hear tell) a couple of kids were hit by speeding cars on separate occasions. While I'm glad to have the speed humps, the only difference now is that people slow down for them and then speed right back up. Moving on...

At about the middle of Mayfield Avenue is Red Barn Way. Down this road is an elementary school. The kids in the neighborhood walk to and from this school every weekday. See that crosswalk on Mayfield Ave? That's were half of the kids cross the street to get to school. Particularly when the weather is nice, a drive down Mayfield will reveal kids playing, families walking with kids or dogs or both and people out for jogs. Like most neighborhoods in the HocCo, this community is connected to others via trails and was designed to be walked.

The speeding on Mayfield gets so out of hand during nice weather that on several occasions our Police Officers park at strategic locations along the street in an attempt to catch the offenders. One day last year I saw 5 cars pulled over at the same time. The effects of these busts are short lived, but the effort is appreciated. Continuing to move on...

When I come home from work I usually have someone behind me that seems to be pissed that I'm only driving 30 mph. The second I turn on my street, they take off like a bat outta hell! For the record, it's not just the through traffic. I have a few speed demon neighbors that tailgate me if they get "stuck" behind me. Sorry folks, I just don't feel like accidentally killing a kid or a dog today.

So here is where I'm going. We're all busy people right? We all want to get where we're going as fast as possible. We don't want to get the red lights, we don't want to let people merge and we don't let people into our lanes lest we be 2 minutes late for dinner. I get it because I can be guilty of it too. But for the love of all things decent, can we just slow the heck down when we are driving through neighborhoods?

So, if you're reading this and realize that maybe you sped through my neighborhood or someone else's or even your own, it's not too late to change. Take a minute to think about everybody else. Every house you pass has people living in it (so maybe turn your music down too). A lot of those people are kids who may not be aware enough to stop before crossing the street or decide to chase after that stray ball without looking both ways.

In short, it is our responsibility as drivers, members of the community and human beings to take our surroundings into account, especially when behind the wheel. We all want to get where we're going, but none of us wants to accidentally harm someone or something in the process. In general, but particularly on neighborhood roads, it's time to slow down a tad, okay?

/Rant.