A West Windsor resident describes her recent?experience trying to?cross at a crosswalk this way:
“My daughter and I were walking?at about 3:30 pm and crossed the road at the crosswalk on Clarksville and Norchester ? sure enough, no drivers stopped, as though they were completely oblivious to the pedestrian crossing. ??It?s even worse at the crossing at 571 and Sherbrooke .”
She noted a Packet Publications article,?Police to Watch Pushy Drivers,?about?a state grant to Hillsborough? police for extra patrols to counter aggressive drivers?and a stalker radar.
“I’d love to see stepped-up enforcement of drivers neglecting to stop at designated pedestrian crossings here in West Windsor,” she adds.
What do you think? Attend the WWBPA’s annual meeting on April 8 if you want to talk about ways to improve motorists’ awareness of pedestrians. None of us want to have a brake-squealing “oh no” moment.
The annual meeting begins at 7 p.m. at the West Windsor Municipal Center, 271 Clarksville Road.
A video from Ridgewood, NJ students on why you should drive 25 in residential areas:
Also, we really need to make license tests a whole lot harder in this state. There are too many people on the roads who just do not deserve to be driving.
By the way, my ‘tailgating causes accidents, not speed’ philosophy is supported by a lot of evidence, since most studies that say that ‘speeding kills’ don’t distinguish between ‘exceeding the speed limit’ and ‘driving too fast for the conditions’ as depending on the road the two can be mutually exclusive.
It really depends on the neighborhood. I honestly don’t like the blanket “25 for residential areas” thing. It’s misleading because some roads that are posted at 25 have an appropriate speed of 40, and some have an appropriate speed of 20. Speed limits need to depend on the road width, visibility, and quality of the road itself not just whether there are some houses nearby. 25 in a cramped neighborhood is fine and I rarely go over 20 in these, because you can’t see a darn thing and kids are running around everywhere. 25 on these open roads that pass through semi-residential areas is ridiculous because you can see a long way and there are far fewer kids running around near the road. Not to mention that many roads similar to these are posted at 35 or 40, so there’s a bit of inconsistency here. The ‘at 30 if you hit someone they have a 55% chance of survival, at 40 they have a 15% change’ thing is irrelevant too, because if you are aware you can slow down dramatically before impact, if not avoid the accident altogether. To hit someone at 40 mph you’d likely have to be going 60 or 65 initially which would be pretty crazy in a residential zone.