To the Editor:
I write today as a grandfather, a driver, and a citizen who still believes that a community has the first obligation to protect its children before it indulges the impatience of adults behind the wheel.
Thank you to John for his letter last week. He was absolutely correct and brave to put his name to letter. I will not put my name to this letter but I live in town and have strong feelings about the issue nevertheless and I appreciate the fact that the Sentinel is willing to publish my thoughts.
The traffic cameras near our schools should be turned back on as soon as possible. I know there are those who greet every public safety measure as if civilization itself had been mugged in the night by local government. I understand the instinct. No one enjoys being told to slow down. No one enjoys the f lash of a reminder that he is not the only person on the road. But there is a difference between liberty and license, and a school zone is a poor place to confuse the two.
I often drive my grandchildren to school. That simple errand has made clear what every parent and grandparent already knows: the minutes around drop-off and pickup are not ordinary traffic hours. They are a daily test of patience, caution, and common sense. Children cross streets. Cars stop suddenly. Doors open. Buses move. Drivers make quick decisions in vehicles that now often weigh nearly two tons and offer less pedestrian visibility than many of us remember from the station wagons of another age.
Twenty miles per hour is not oppression. It is prudence. It is the proper speed for a street crowded with children, parents, buses, crossing guards, backpacks, blind spots, and human fallibility. And if it is just one of those things, then the stakes are higher because drivers are not paying as close attention—especially on our tech-riddled roads.
The cameras are not an all-day restriction. The flashing lights limit their use to the peak school transport periods, when the danger is greatest and the margin for error is smallest. That is not government overreach. That is targeted enforcement where the stakes are plain.
I have seen drivers pass other vehicles on roads such as Lake Avenue and North Street, conduct so reckless that it would be difficult to believe if one had not witnessed it. I have also seen drivers run red lights on Putnam Avenue at Greenwich Avenue and Mason Street, sometimes many vehicles at a time. These are not abstractions. These are not hypothetical violations conjured up for a municipal report. They are real decisions made by real drivers, and they place real children and pedestrians at risk.
Some will say they are being delayed. Perhaps they are, by a minute or two. But the purpose of a school zone is not to preserve the schedule of the most hurried driver. It is to preserve life, order, and mutual responsibility in places where children have every reason to expect adults to behave like adults.
Driving is a privilege, not a right. Privileges come with obligations, and one of those obligations is to accept reasonable limits when the safety of children is involved. A community that cannot ask its drivers to slow down near schools has surrendered too much to convenience.
Can there be improvements? Yes. It does not matter. Don’t speed. Turn the cameras back on.
