Planet Jeffro

Wow - there was a major crash outside our apartment late last night.  

Allegedly Drunken Driver Flips Car Onto Frederick Douglass Circle

This was my tweet last night:

car crashed into Fred. Douglass circle- totally into concrete benches and stuff. Mustve been speeding/drunk/? Wow 

http://yfrog.com/khlmlaxj

I said “must’ve been speeding” because there’s no way you can miss the fact that big concrete benches and things - not to mention a huge statue - are in a giant circle where your car probably won’t fit.

In the report they said callers told 911 he blew through a stop sign.  Note: there are no stop signs at the circle. They are all lights.

Frederick Douglass circle is a nightmare because of the lights and so many cars that blow through them at all hours of the day.  I’ve already called the Harlem precinct about installing traffic cameras to catch these people.

I’d say about 1-2 cars on average illegally go through red lights while there is a walk signal.  There is a high likelihood that in that the pedestrians are children, parents pushing strollers, locals walking dogs, etc - this is a family friendly neighborhood.

The light system works like this:

• 35 seconds green for the circle traffic (all 4 intersecting streets have red)
• 20 seconds green for intersecting streets (so all those cars can make a right into the circle)
• 30 s walk signal (all red)

So in this 1 min 35 second cycle, about 1-2 cars are putting people in danger and ought to be fined.  I see this all the time - you literally just need to stand on the corner and watch the cars for a few minutes.  That’s close to 1,500 cars per day.

I had asked the precinct to do something but he said I’d need to go through the transportation committee of my community board.  This might be tough…