Thursday, April 12, 2007

An unheard even took place in Indianapolis yesterday. Wednesday, April 11, from 13th to 25th streets, 50 to 60 people stood at street corners holding signs imploring drivers to slow down. The message those people tried drivers to hear is to reduce their speed while driving through residential neighborhoods. This request could be surely appreciated by residents of any other major streets. "Slow down", "Please drive 35 in our neighborhood", "We live here. Slow down" - these are the signs that people wrote.
This protest was a planned action of three neighborhoods that decided to remind drivers that their street is not a highway.
The neighbors also got help from police who came out with hand-held police radar guns and traffic ticket books.
On Monday alone, police officers stationed there handed out 42 speeding tickets. Even police officers said that they haven't experienced anything like this before. The speed limit there is 35 mph, but most of the speeding tickets went to drivers traveling 15 mph and more over the speed limit.
The situation reached its point that this year drivers usie city streets as alternate routes because of the I-70 construction project. Police department said that along the Delaware Street a speed trailer should be set up. It'll be done in order to show people how fast they go, because the goal of this operation and people's protest isn't to issue more speeding tickets, but to ensure neighborhood safety. It should be an educational process, not law enforcement. People have to understand that they must go the speed limit.