Susan Peterson doesn’t look out at her window and wonder when it will happen again. She doesn’t have to.
“I just tense every time I hear brakes,” she said. “I’ve had kids in my house crying because their mother didn’t know what to do.”
Peterson has lived in her house near the intersection of 21st and Tennessee St. for more than 20 years. In that time she has seen numerous near misses, fender benders and accidents take place - some just a few feet from her house.
Visibility at the intersection has been a problem for some drivers traveling east and west. Parked vehicles on the west side of Tennessee Street have impaired drivers' vision enough to where drivers think it is safe to cross the street. Peterson recalled that in November one driver attempted to cross the intersection but didn’t make it. Instead a mother and two children were broadsided.
There were no deaths in the accident, and Peterson, like she had done many times before, became a helping hand to the accident victims. The mother suffered a broken foot and her two children were noticeably frightened. Peterson later wrote a letter to the Lawrence Traffic Safety Commission requesting a no parking zone along the west side of Tennessee Street adjacent to 21st Street.
“I’ve seen enough,” Peterson said. “I felt someone needed to do something.”
Last week on a 4-3 vote, the Traffic Safety Commission recommended the City Commission to establish a no parking zone 115 feet north and 115 feet south of the intersection.
Traffic safety commissioner Carol Bowen voted in favor of Peterson’s request. Her reasoning was because of an increase in city traffic.
“Traffic is a lot worse now than it was last year and certainly five years ago or 10 years ago,” Bowen said. “So I think the measures of anything we can do to limit people’s chances for rear-ending each other and getting injured, we need to do as a Traffic Safety Commission.”
But traffic safety commissioner Ken Miller voted against Peterson’s request, citing police reports that indicate only three crashes at the intersection in the last three years, and the need to preserve parking.
“I wanted to maintain parking spaces for people to use,” Miller said. “It wasn’t an easy decision. But I feel that three crashes in three years - and it’s not even determined if the parking situation played any role in those three crashes - I just don’t think the traffic safety data – the crash data – indicates that there is an abnormal problem there.”
But Peterson disagreed with Miller’s analysis.
“To think that this is a low accident (area) is a misnomer,” she said.
Alex Newman has lived on Tennessee Street for 47 years. If the City Commission approves the no parking request, the parking area in front of her house will no longer be available.
“I wouldn’t like it,” Newman said.
While Newman usually doesn’t park on Tennessee Street, opting to park in her garage or driveway instead, she agrees with Peterson that the intersection has been problematic over the years. But Newman thought the accidents haven’t been caused by parked cars, but rather driver error.
“I’ve been out here a lot of times and see people going either direction on 21st Street that go right through the stop sign,” she said. “So they just aren’t paying attention.”
Newman agreed that taking steps to save people from injury was a just cause but felt the inconvenience of having friends and family not being able to park in front of her house would be troublesome because they would have to park further down Tennessee Street or on another block.
Peterson wouldn’t speculate on what the chances are that her request will be approved by the City Commission when they meet in a few weeks, but she realizes both points of view have valid reasoning.
“I can understand both ways,” she said.
Peterson did not attend last week’s meeting at City Hall and doesn’t plan on attending the City Commission meeting when her request goes for final approval. But no matter the outcome, Peterson is content knowing she made an effort - pass or fail.
“I would be appreciative of the fact that they took it to heart knowing that someone in the community did something to help.”