This morning a 12-year-old child riding their bike to Natomas Park Elementary School was hit by an inattentive motorist, according to Paladin Security. The child is reportedly alright with only minor injuries.
Our question: How many children must be hit by vehicles in Natomas before motorists get a clue, slow down and observe traffic signals?!
it surpises me that the blame automatically falls on the vehcile operator. Ive lived in Natomas for 7 years now and I see children CONSTANTLY disobey traffic rules, crossing streets against a red, crossing outside of crosswalks, riding bikes in the street with headphones on and not in the bike lane. Im not saying this WASNT the drivers fault(I didnt see the accidentt.. did you?), but parents need to teach their children obey the laws as well. Kids are not invinclible and drivers have certain expectations…like that traffic laws will be followed.
I live on the street the accident happened. I was told that the child was riding on the wrong side of the street, didn’t obey the stop sign and rode her bike across the street instead of getting off and walking it in the crosswalk. However, it happened at an all way stop, at a time where any attentive driver should give all children the right of way and/or assume the child will take it. My concern is why cars SUVs, vans and trucks are allowed to park in front of the crosswalk and stopsigns that are in front of a school? Common sense says no parking within so many feet, but the officers on the scene said no such law. So even if the child obeys the rules, they still have to step out from behind large vehicles.
Certainly kids will not always comply with traffic laws, but in the last 2-3 years, the drivers on our streets are much worse, just yesterday I saw a car pass three cars on N Bend in opposite lane by the school and park where kid was hit, it was bad. It is more populated now, and poor drivers are just more numerous, it is unlikely anything can be done, short of putting a cop on the corner at the school. Paladin has had a presence and problems persist.
Everyone needs to pay more attention, the drivers, the children AND the school. Why don’t they have parent volunteers out crossing children during busy times?
In two separate incidents yesterday I almost hit children on bikes. One was in front of Natomas Park where I came to a full stop, looked both ways and started to go when a child crossed the street the wrong way on a bike. The other was on Del Paso near Natomas Middle School where two kids were basically playing chicken with cars trying to get them to swerve. The schools need to help us out a little too!
I’ve lived in north natomas for 2 years now and I must say the kids out and about need to pay much more attention as well. I constantly see kids riding outside of bike lanes, crossing the road at random, and generally not paying any attention. I think the ipods are making things a lot worse as well. There’s not a teenager around that doesn’t have headphones on at all times around the neighborhood and couldn’t hear a car if they had to. the roads are dangerous and need to be taken seriously. Personally, I would prefer some cop presence to watch the speeding and also teach the kids the proper way of traveling on the roads.