Beaumont-Wilshire Neighborhood Assn.

Safety Is The Issue

Oct 10, 2000

By Helen Koba and Mario Caoile

As the rains return, we begin to spend more time in our homes, ?‘nesting?’, reading, and contemplating. One Saturday in early September, as we were working on this BWNA newsletter issue, we heard a loud crash ?– metal on metal kind of crash. Along with other neighbors, we rushed out to the street, anxious, curious, and concerned. Two cars had run into each other at an intersection two blocks from our house that has no stop signs in either direction. One neighbor called medical and police assistance immediately. The rest of us stood around and exchanged ideas why these things happen: people driving too fast on residential streets, not slowing down at intersections, each driver assuming he/she has the right of way, etc. We agreed that many of the streets in the Beaumont Wilshire Neighborhood are similar to Shaver, a small residential street crisscrossed by other residential streets with no signs telling drivers to stop, slow down or yield.

That Saturday, we don?’t know for sure if anyone was injured. As we retuned later from a quick dinner out, residents were still cleaning up the debris. The fire trucks, ambulance and police cars were gone. The responsiveness and concern of people on our street heartened us. We want to echo the comments about safety and speeding expressed by Willie Nolan and Greg Pressler elsewhere in this issue: we are responsible to ourselves and our neighbors to drive slowly and conscientiously, to slow down at intersections, to be alert and watch for others.