Dear Editor:
Further to Robert Plotka’s letter in the February 4, 2001, edition of The Hoboken Reporter (The killing fields of Hoboken), it’s not cars parking within 25 feet of an intersection that are the greatest danger to pedestrians. It is the fact that many drivers just roll through those intersections despite stop signs and Right Turn on Red restrictions. It is the drivers who fail to look the opposite way at a one-way intersection (didn’t their mothers teach them to look both ways). It is the drivers who fail to yield the right of way to pedestrians already in a crosswalk. And it’s the drivers who perform U-turns in the middle of intersections. It is the aggressive behavior of people driving in and through Hoboken that should concern us, not the passive act of parking.
Yes, I would like to see restrictions on the type of vehicles that park within 25 feet of an intersection (no vans, SUVs or trucks, please), but I would rather see our police actively pursuing drivers who cruise our town with more regard for their time than for the safety of people around them. I would rather see our police stationed at intersections looking to prevent such abuse than have them driving up and down Washington Street moving off double parked cars.
If pedestrian safety is a priority then let us address the underlying problem — drivers, not cars.
Dennis Rees