Our Fears Have Been Confirmed...

We have been quite concerned for several years now about raising children on our particular street because of a family of very fast drivers. It seems that their teenaged sons have moved out, but the mother still speeds by often. We first noticed how fast they drove down our 30 mph speed limit road when Caroline was a baby, and it concerned us that one day we would have children playing in our front yard and riding bikes in the street. Our house is at the top of a hill, so anyone coming over it quickly has less time to stop if they suddenly realize that there's something in the middle of the road at the top of the hill.

Somehow we missed all the excitement yesterday... we were eating lunch, and we did notice the ambulance drive by with its lights on, but I figured it was going elsewhere in the neighborhood and not that it was leaving the scene three doors down. Caroline mentioned that we should say a prayer for whoever was in the ambulance, so we did. I didn't think anything more of it until Chris asked later that evening, "So, lots of police activity in the neighborhood today?"

What happened was this: our neighbor who lives two houses down from us was working in his yard (or maybe in his next door neighbor's yard - not quite sure). He is frequently out working in the yard... his property has a ravine-type area on it with lots of trees and such, and he works down there a lot to prevent it from getting overgrown. Yesterday, he was pulling tree branches in a small trailer attached to the back of a small riding mower (without a cutting deck - he uses this mower frequently to haul things around). He was up on the road right by the curb, where he was taking the branches. He was on the mower when he was hit nearly head-on by a car driven by... of course, I instantly guessed that it was this particular neighbor or one of her sons. We really were always concerned that something like this would happen one day. :-(

Our neighbor who was hit was pushed back 72 feet and into his neighbor's mailbox, riding mower, trailer, and all. I assume he would have gone further if the mailbox hadn't stopped him. He was in ICU with a broken leg and collapsed lung but from what we have heard, he is going to be okay. The neighbor who was in the car claimed (according to news stories) that he was hidden from her view behind the brush pile along the side of the road. We walked past the brush pile on our morning walk today... and I am taller than it while standing, so I am unsure of how a man sitting on a riding mower would be blocked by this pile. Also, the news story says he was turning into a driveway. Based on the location of the brush pile, it would seem that he was either turning into his own driveway or his next door neighbor's driveway (the pile was between the two). Based on the scrapes in the pavement (from the trailer on the mower), he was at his own driveway when hit and was pushed back to the neighbor's driveway... meaning he must have been turning into his own driveway. What I don't understand is how a man on a mower driving towards an oncoming car, on the right side of the road and making a left turn in front of a brush pile... how can the view be obstructed by the brush pile? There is no way he could have been behind it if all those details are accurate.

Thank God we weren't out walking there when it happened. And I hope that this will be a lesson to all on our street to drive more slowly.