As discussions continue on with the town council and among the Windsor Police on issues related to reckless driving, speeding and even sideshow-type activities within the town, Wally Krutz, a resident of Starr Road, has been expressing his concerns about road safety in the town for some time.
At the March 3 meeting of the Windsor Town Council, Windsor police chief Ruben Martinez gave a brief presentation after complaints from townsfolk and council members about the prevalence of loud cars and reckless driving within the town over the past few months, a complaint echoed across many cities in Sonoma County.
According to Martinez, overall, traffic accidents in the town have gone down. In 2017 there were 184 accidents, with 61 being hit and runs, in 2018, there were 169 accidents, with 49 of them being hit and runs, in 2019 there were 122 accidents with 33 hit and runs and finally in 2020 there were 110 accidents with 34 being hit and runs.
On March 19, Krutz sent the Times a series of photos of an accident which took place near his home.
“Since you can’t be everywhere, I just thought I would forward some accident pictures. Remarkably both the young men walked away seemingly unharmed. It is not be hard to imagine a much worse outcome, especially since heavy parts flew for many yards in different directions,” Krutz said of the accident.
Krutz has long been concerned with issues of speeding and setting of speed limits in town, and has spoken during public comment at many town council meetings. “We all know that aggressive driving and speeding is on the upswing with enforcement and traffic courts severely hampered by COVID,” he said in an email. “There are many communities who are speaking up, taking aggressive actions and demanding changes to laws that favor public safety instead of reckless drivers.
“The incident happened on my street, Starr Road, which, although it is not considered a residential road, is highly traveled by cyclists and has very high pedestrian use. When the vehicle lost control, it hit a utility pole a regular target along with trees, a fire hydrant, and pets. Under state law because Starr is less than 25 feet wide it would have a speed limit of 25 mph or less, however, because of exceptions cited by traffic engineers, it is considered safe to post it at the higher speed set by the speed at the 85th percentile,” Krutz said.
Krutz expressed that he thinks while technology plays a role in the problems currently being experienced by town residents, he also thinks some solutions can be found through technology.
“Systemic changes are needed to rein in technology. The car in the photo will do 0 to 60 in less than six seconds. Many other production models are under 3 seconds. It was driven by teenagers who apparently did not have the experience to handle it properly,” he said. “Technology can be the answer too. There are devices to monitor abuse of the law that should be on commercial vehicles to ensure employee safety; on new drivers for an extended period of time as part of their earning their privilege to drive and on any vehicle driven by someone convicted of excessive speeding/reckless driving. Yet it is almost impossible to get any discussion, let alone real consideration for other than traditional enforcement.”
Krutz concluded his comments by hoping that by seeing the photos, others will join him in trying to find solutions to issues of traffic safety.
“I think we at least need to show our community how real this threat is and not wait for deaths and lives to be ruined,” he finished.
Martinez finished up his March 3 presentation by recommending how resident can help catch some of these drivers, stating that while citizens have been good about sending in photos of suspect vehicles, what the police really need is videos of the vehicles doing misdeeds. A photo of the license plate is good but if it can be paired with a video of the bad behavior officers can take action after the fact.
