Slow Down on Grand Boulevard

Here is a letter to the readers of Scarsdale10583 from Sharon Hoffman, a working mom who lives in Fox Meadow: I live over on Grand Boulevard, across the street from Hyatt Field. You probably know the block, if you have a child who’s played baseball on that field, or a younger one you’ve pushed on the swings in the park playground. You may also know it because you use it as a speedy cut-through, a way to shave a few minutes off your errands or your trip to work, the only route you can take to make the train if you really book it.

I’m writing to ask that you please -- please -- stop doing that and slow down.

The picture you see attached to this letter is a picture of my car. My 23-year-old babysitter was driving that car Monday evening. She had put her signal on and slowed down to turn left in to my driveway, when she was rear-ended by a driver who, as a witness told the police, must have been going fifty miles an hour. The force of the impact spun the car around and sent it into my neighbor’s lawn; for some reason, the car went in to reverse then (maybe her arm hit the shift knob), and drove backwards across the street. Somehow, my babysitter had the presence of mind to turn the car off before it crashed through the fence and down on to the baseball field.

Look at that car again, and now think about this: My nine-year-old son was sitting in the back seat.

I’ve gone through all the what-ifs since then... what if my babysitter had tried to turn the car to avoid getting hit; what if there was an oncoming car; what if, what if, what if. Both she and my son, by some miracle, seem to be fine, though she’s very sore, and my son has an enormous bruise on his face from the seat belt. They were both terribly shaken by the accident, of course. But you can look at that picture and know what I know. They could both be dead.

Let me tell you something else about that accident. It was a straight-on hit; there is no evidence the driver behind my car was trying to turn (and there’s a big shoulder to the right of the street, going downhill). There is a skid mark, right behind where my car got hit, that is about three feet long. Three feet.

To the fifty-something man from Edgewood who was driving the SUV: Be honest with yourself. Why were you driving fifty miles an hour down that road with a car in front of you? Why were you unprepared for a car to slow down in front of you, and unable to control your own car? Why didn’t you hit the brakes or turn right to try to avoid my car? What did you think, that my babysitter was going to do a donut and zip in to my driveway?

And with a three-foot skid mark, here’s the worst, and inevitable, question: Did you even see the car in front of you, or were you looking down at a phone?

My babysitter is an au pair from Germany, where kids have to save thousands of dollars for the privilege of getting a driver’s license. That money pays for many hours of mandatory instruction and supervised practice. She’s an exceptionally careful driver. When she came here, I told her, it’s not your driving I’m worried about -- it’s the people driving around you. They drive too fast, in very big cars, and they’re always late getting somewhere so they get right up behind you to make sure you know they’re serious. Plus, this has to be the nation’s capital of distracted driving. Try this sometime: Watch the drivers approaching you next time you run to the supermarket, and count the number you see looking down. You’ll be amazed. I constantly am. We get emails from our elementary school pleading with us not to text and drive at pickup and dropoff. Seriously. I know, I know... you only check at stoplights, you read but don’t type, you have to look at the directions, you’re just dialing a number and that’s okay because you’ve got Bluetooth. Everyone’s really good at typing and driving, until they’re not. Why would you even take the chance?

Some free advice, and it’ll even save you money: Check out www.idrivesafely.com. That’s one of many sites where you can take an online defensive driving refresher course. You’ll be reminded you’re supposed to keep three car lengths between you and the car in front of you, so you have time to adjust if something happens you didn’t predict. The few hours you spend taking the course will knock ten percent off your car insurance payments for three years.

In the case of my car, well, I have no more car. The other driver’s insurance company already paid off my lease... they stopped counting at $21,000 worth of damage. I’m a full-time working mother who now has to go buy a new car with what little free time I have this weekend. I will absolutely take that deal because I still have a child to come home to, and I don’t have to make a horrible call to a mother in Germany about her daughter.

But I’m left with the reality that, as I sit here and type this letter, I can hear cars zoom past outside. Happens all the time… and I’ve had cars tail me, too, the way that man was tailing my babysitter that night. There’s a big sign that says 30mph on it, but just like typing and driving, few people seem to think it applies to them. Why anyone would drive faster than that, anywhere in a residential neighborhood, is completely beyond me.

With respect, I would like to ask the Mayor, the Village Manager, the Board of Trustees, and the Scarsdale Police Department to please consider steps to make Boulevard and Grand Boulevard safer for the families who live alongside it. You could put stop signs at the intersection of Potter Road and Boulevard -- that would end the problem immediately, because it would no longer be possible to gain the kind of speed people seem to enjoy driving down that hill. You could reinstitute an occasional speed trap near Hyatt, so people think twice before NASCAR racing alongside a little league field. Will you please at least discuss the issue?

And to my friends and neighbors, please just take a look at that picture of my car one more time. Think about the fact that my son was in the back seat. And think how it would feel to be reading a letter from a mother who’d lost her son in that car, begging you to drive more carefully as a tribute to him. Will nothing short of a child’s death get everyone to pay attention to how they drive around here? The people of this town are smarter than that. And we’re better than that, too.

Sharon Hoffman
March 16, 2012