I know this might piss some people off, but it needs to be said. It is NOT okay to let small children play in the street. There is a lady that recently moved in to our neighborhood and she lets her toddler children play in the street. Our street is a very busy street. It runs parallel to the main street that an elementary school is on. That street has speed mountains so people come down our street instead so they can go faster and avoid the speed bumps. The residential speed limit is 25 mph. While many, myself included, obey that speed limit, a greater many do not. This lady also lives near the corner which makes it even more dangerous because a driver has even less time to see and react to the sudden appearance of something in the road. We also have a lot of contractors that live at that end of the block so there are big vehicles parked all along that area which makes visibility even worse. One day I came around the corner and had to come to a complete stop because her children were in the middle of the street riding slow moving motorized toys. She puts this stupid turtle sign out in the street and thinks somehow this means it’s okay to put her children in harms way. Every time I see that stupid sign I want to run it over. Streets are for cars not children. Now I understand that there are locations that don’t offer kids a safe place to play, and I get it. Cities like New York where many homes do not have back yards or front yards. I get it. Cul-de-sacs where there is better visibility and it’s not a through street. I get it. Dirt roads that don’t have much traffic, I get it. Older kids who can watch for cars and get out of the way, I get it. Little kids are irrational, and unpredictable, and very likely to run into the street from between parked cars where a driver won’t see them until the very last minute. Our neighborhood has very large back yards and there is literally an enormous park complete with very wide walkways, a large jungle gym play area and even a duck pond where you can feed the ducks, just a block away. In our city we have tons of very nice parks that are located in almost every neighborhood. I think our park is the nicest because of the duck pond. We use to take our children over there often when they were young. So why would any decent parent choose to put their kids out front in the street where they are very likely to get hit by a car when they have an easily accessible safe alternative? Why!? The fact is a 25 mph impact can still cause serious injury and even kill depending on the circumstance. Why would any decent parent even take that risk?! I often enter my street at the other end so I can avoid that area altogether. I don’t want to be the poor driver that through no fault of my own hits one of those kids and has to live with it the rest of my life. That stupid turtle sign won’t bring your baby back, but good parenting and not allowing small children to play in the street will keep them from getting hit in the first place!?
