Dear Editor:
This is an open letter to the mayors of Weehawken, Union City and West New York.
I am a resident of Hoboken, who lives on Willow Avenue with my mother, and day after day, we are driven up the wall by the volunteer ambulances of your towns screaming through our street with their sirens blasting and horns blowing. While I understand that they come through the block because St. Mary Hospital is on 3rd Street; what I do not understand is why they have to blow their sirens and horns when they have no one in the back cab. That is correct, you have read it right; 99 percent of the time your cities’ ambulances have no one in them so they are just making a lot of unnecessary noise to get through traffic. I would consider this a joy ride and an illegal use of an emergency vehicle for a personal errand.
During the week nine out of 10 of your ambulances have no one in them (about eight to 10 times a day one of them comes through) and on the weekends it is even worse (10 to 15) and many a times there are no cars in the way, and they also do it in the early morning hours as well. These figures are no lie because my mother, who cannot go out, sees this from her window, and I see it when I am sitting on my stoop. These ambulances should not be allowed in our city unless they do have someone in them or there is such a serious emergency that they are needed to help out.
There is enough noise in this city as it is, car alarms going off, drunks on weekends, people blowing their horns because they are hemmed in by a double-parked car. There is more noise in Hoboken than in New York City, and we do not need your ambulances adding to this noise every five minutes. I hope that each of you will take some kind of action against your volunteer ambulance drivers and fine them if they violate any of the rules. I know that these ambulance corps are run by private donations but I feel that they should be regulated just the same. Thank you.
A Hoboken resident