A Danville mother and her two young sons, who have had close calls with vehicles while trying to cross Mill Street, thinks drivers aren’t paying attention when a traffic light turns red. “It’s mostly in the morning when people are trying to get to work,” said Deserae Clarke. She walks her boys, ages 4 and 7, to Learning Tree Child Care on Mill Street. Clarke’s older boy takes a bus from there to the Danville Primary School. While they also walk home from the Learning Tree in the afternoon, she said the red light running mostly occurs in the morning when people seem to be hurrying to get to work. The close calls with drivers have occurred at the red light at the Mill Street intersection near Beiter’s Department Store. “We push the button to cross the street. It’s frustrating. We are trying to obey the traffic laws and cross safely. I feel it’s a gamble whether people will actually stop,” she said. About a week ago, they pushed the pedestrian walk button and her younger son started to cross the street. Luckily, she held him back. She leaned out only to discover “somebody was running the red light.” “Maybe the borough can place a sign at eye level saying stop ahead. In some towns, there is a flasher,” she said of some type of signal to alert drivers there is a red light. “I am open to anything,” she said. Clarke said they had a really close call about six months ago. “I had to pull my kids back. It didn’t even seem to register with the driver who didn’t slow down,” she said. After that, they started crossing at Lower Mulberry Street but with the fire at BJ’s Steak and Rib House, that Mill Street sidewalk is blocked so they started crossing again at the light near Beiter’s. She recently contacted Danville Councilman Tom Wickham about the safety hazard. Clarke has spoken with Danville police in the past about drivers running that red light. “There needs to be some sort of solution to encourage people to obey,” Wickham said at last week’s council meeting. Council President Scott Richardson asked the street committee to come up with possible solutions.
Posted on: Wed, 28 May 2014 22:39:58 +0000
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