The downside to on-street parking
I was awakened at 4:45AM this morning by the reminder that on-street parking has a downside – hit and run accidents. Although, in this case the suspect(s) fled on foot.
The white Ford you see was parked behind my car on my side street. A neighbor says a girl was driving the other car you see and a guy was driving a pickup in the opposite direction – he let his truck roll into a parked van. Both ran (literally) after the accident – the pickup was left running!
My first concern was my car which was thankfully unharmed. Generally my streets are pretty quite but you do get the occasional speeding driver or one that ignores the stop signs. Last week another neighbors car was hit slightly in the middle of the day when a couple of drivers ignored the stop signs.
Makes me think of Seattle where such intersections wouldn’t have stop signs at all but roundabouts in the middle of them – forcing drivers to slow. St. Louis is trying a few such roundabouts here but I’m not sure if we can give up our stop signs. Just think of the economy – the clutch alone would last much longer if we didn’t have all these stop signs. Plus, we might actually lower our exhaust emissions by not having so much stopping and starting (for those of us that actually stop at stop signs).
UPDATE 7:45am:
Three hours later the city towing service arrives to begin pulling the cars off my tree lawn. The operator says we had lots of accidents last night…
The pickup was allowed to roll into the parked van, it was still running when the suspects fled. Police are still investigating and writing up their report.
– Steve
There’s a roundabout right at the corner near our building in Chicago and it really works. It’s great.
StL’s half cocked approach to roundabouts produced the Grand and Riverview circles. I dare anyone who visits StL to try their hand at the Riverview circle during rush hour!
It just encourages people to speed….then slam on their brakes (or make you) so as to not miss their turn.
street parking in StL city is a gamble. I once walked out to find my 3 day old brand new car had been sideswiped from tire to tire on the passenger side on my one way street. and there was no evidence of who did it or anyone who witnessed it. talk about depressing.
i’m looking forward to roundabouts on my busy south city street, however that’s not going to stop some idiot from drinking 20 busch beers and passing out on the way home!