Dead Kids and Traffic Lights
About a half century ago in the neighborhoods in south Philadelphia, it took at least three kids dead in the streets before the city council would even consider a traffic light at corner crossing.
I counted them...three.
I knew some of the kids. In those days, we didn't count the color of the kids, they were just kids. It was pretty evenly mixed. As they said, "back in the day," there were no "Hispanics" so it was just white and blacks, which were called Negroes. That was before we were enlightened.
Anyway,most of the deaths were kids, about 10 to 15 or 16 years old, really not old or fast enough to get out of the way of the speeding cars, smashed to bits by the hit-and-runs. In those days, they always caught the h&rs. Today, well, they are crammed into bank robberies, illegal alien runs, drug busts and whatever. Don't get much attention.
I digress - kids getting killed and traffic lights...when three deaths per intersection occur, the traffic light goes up, then kids are no longer a statistic. People stop complaining.
" Why does it take kids getting killed before the City does something," they complain.
Where I live a young 13 year old boy had his life snuffed out just five blocks from my home by a hit and run. The punk never stopped, they never caught him, a cross by the McDonald's parking lot honors his earthly departure (most Hispanic Cultures does this in Arizona), and today, I noted the city is measuring for a light at that very intersection.
I asked the crew if a light is going up. The old Mexican gentleman holding the rod high in the air didn't speak, he just nodded his head yes, made the Catholic sign of the cross as we drove slowly by.
Why DOES it take a child's death to get a light at a heavily traveled intersection?
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I counted them...three.
I knew some of the kids. In those days, we didn't count the color of the kids, they were just kids. It was pretty evenly mixed. As they said, "back in the day," there were no "Hispanics" so it was just white and blacks, which were called Negroes. That was before we were enlightened.
Anyway,most of the deaths were kids, about 10 to 15 or 16 years old, really not old or fast enough to get out of the way of the speeding cars, smashed to bits by the hit-and-runs. In those days, they always caught the h&rs. Today, well, they are crammed into bank robberies, illegal alien runs, drug busts and whatever. Don't get much attention.
I digress - kids getting killed and traffic lights...when three deaths per intersection occur, the traffic light goes up, then kids are no longer a statistic. People stop complaining.
" Why does it take kids getting killed before the City does something," they complain.
Where I live a young 13 year old boy had his life snuffed out just five blocks from my home by a hit and run. The punk never stopped, they never caught him, a cross by the McDonald's parking lot honors his earthly departure (most Hispanic Cultures does this in Arizona), and today, I noted the city is measuring for a light at that very intersection.
I asked the crew if a light is going up. The old Mexican gentleman holding the rod high in the air didn't speak, he just nodded his head yes, made the Catholic sign of the cross as we drove slowly by.
Why DOES it take a child's death to get a light at a heavily traveled intersection?
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