Park Slope Parents is once again making news on the web. This story of Mommy Rage is getting around (Curbed carried it today). Dang. I really need to be more diligent about reading that list-serve. Look what I missed:
[ParkSlopeParents] traffic from hell
Tue Jul 11, 2006 2:31 pmI
live on 12th Street just off Fifth. When my son was much smaller I
lived in mortal fear of trips to the supermarket or my bank with my son
in his stroller (I bank at HSBC and shop at the supermarket next to it)
for exactly the same reasons you’ve mentioned. Even now – he’s 7 – I
make him hold my hand while crossing much to his mortification, and
I’ve been known to yank him HARD to get him across the street and out
of the path of maniacs making that same turn. It’s not getting better,
it’s getting much, much worse – the cars are turning faster, and there
are more of them doing the same exact thing.I saw one woman
struggling across the street with multiple bags of groceries hanging
off her kid’s stroller; when she got cut off, TWICE, she reached into
her grocery bags and hauled out a can of beans which she threw at the
rear window of the second car, cracking it clear across. Several
witnesses clapped and cheered. The jerk driving the car actually had
the nerve to pull over and come after her about the window, but
fortunately, everyone that had seen what happened backed her up. I
didn’t see the ultimate finale, but that’s one of the more extreme
things I’ve seen at that intersection.
Not sure what you can do, but what you can’t do is hurl heavy objects at their windows. What if the glass cut a passenger? A child as precious as her own? Sorry, but righteous indignation is no excuse for just plain nutty behavior.
What can we do about these drivers who cut pedestrians up crossing the street? Our right of way? It seems to have no relevance anymore. This happens city-wide, but why don’t we start campaigning locally to make our streets safer?