To the Editor:

To the Beemer driver who tailgated me and flipped me the bird when I had the nerve to drive the speed limit and stop at stop signs in the tree streets area of town; get a grip. Spruce Street isn’t the place to demonstrate your driving prowess and your vehicle’s clearly awesome power.

There are kids on these narrow streets, bicycle riders (both in the street and on the sidewalks), lots of pedestrians crisscrossing the streets to get to their cars, and, of course those damnable electric scooter/skate board riders who blithely drive at top speed as if the laws of physics won’t govern their ability to stop. Twenty miles per hour is more than fast enough to get you to where you are going in the five short blocks that make up the tree streets area. The intersection of Spruce and Chestnut is particularly dangerous given the poor sight lines and the need to pull forward over the pedestrian crossings at Spruce Street to see if there are cars or trucks making their way up and down Chestnut Street. There are plenty of blind driveways too.

There is a general disregard for traffic safety that has taken root in the driving public. U-turns and K-turns in the middle of Nassau Street are commonplace as is speeding and tailgating for what purpose I can’t fathom. You can’t shave that many minutes off your commute, can you? There is no upside to careless driving on residential streets, so Beemer Guy, keep both hands on the steering wheel instead of one out the window with a single finger salute and get your foot off the accelerator.

Note to Police Department: If you want to fill the local coffers with speeding fines, just park a speed recording device mid-block on Chestnut Street and pull them over at Barbara Boggs Sigmund Park. You’ll make bank.

Ralph Thayer
Chestnut Street