Fury, fireworks and fast cars

I am writing to express my concern about raising the speed limits on South Pasadena streets. I hope that you will vote NO on the issue of raising the speed limits. I have read the 2008 Engineering and Traffic survey as posted on the city website. I am writing because I will be unable to attend the meeting on Thursday night as I will be at work at Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles where I work as a Pediatric Intensive Care Nurse.

My first concern is the safety of our children. Oak Street, in particular, borders, or is on the common walking path to Marengo, SPMS and SPHS. Increasing the speed that cars travel on this road seems to be asking for more injuries. Students jay walk, parents Double Park and bicycles dart out quickly. While it would be nice to be able to fix all of these behaviors it does not seem possible, but by at least keeping the vehicle speeds slow we can keep the injuries to a minimum.

The common fatality risk curve shown in the emergency medicine literature demonstrates that only 5 % of pedestrians hit at 20 MPH are killed, however that number increases to 45 % when the vehicle is traveling at 30 mph. (European Transport Safety Council (1995). It seems to me that we should consider lowering the speed limit around the schools rather than raising them.

Several of the other streets listed on the survey are quite short. Primrose and Fletcher for example are only listed at .364 miles long. Primrose is 2 blocks with a stop sign in the middle, Fletcher a single longer block. If the speed limit is increased on either of these streets from 25 MPH (it takes 0.8 of a minute to travel that distance) to 30 MPH (It will then take only 0.7 of a minute) we will be increasing the time to travel on these streets by about 6 seconds (one tenth of a minute). I do not think the drivers need to save that time as they travel one or 2 blocks before coming to a complete stop at the end of the blocks. This is especially true since there are many families with children on each of these streets. There is always inherent danger of children running out into the street chasing a ball or other toy. Is that six seconds worth a 40 % increase in fatality if a pedestrian is hit?

I am also concerned with the manner in which the new speeds were determined. According to the Engineering and Traffic Survey the streets were surveyed to see how fast people were driving on them currently, and if people were consistently (85% critical speed) driving above the posted speed limit, raising the speed limit was then considered.

This seems to be encouraging faster and faster driving. For example if we raise the limits to 30 MPH and then people start driving at 35 MPH the recommendation in 5 years will be to raise the speed limits again. I think many drivers feel that it is ‘safe’ (from tickets at least, maybe not from accidents) to travel slightly above the posted limit. I feel confident that if the posted limits are raised the drivers will continue to increase their speeds. I feel that it would better serve our community to keep the speed limits at lower levels and ticket drivers who do not obey the limits.

As a resident of South Pasadena, a mother of children who often walk to and from school and as an Intensive Care Nurse specializing in critically ill and injured children I am asking that you vote NO on the question of raising the speed limits on South Pasadena Streets.

Sincerely, Elizabeth Daley RN, BSN, EMT-P