Valencia Street Residents' Group
Our members and supporters are local families, veterans, disabled & elderly from all walks of life and range of incomes -- who depend on our group to keep them informed of issues that affect the safety and quality of their lives.
Traffic safety, street crimes, environmental hazards and gentrification are issues we monitor and take action upon, to keep us all safe.
16th & Valencia Streets are among the city's highest pedestrian, bike, escooter, bike, ride-share, robot car and commercial delivery traffic areas.
We have many children, babies, dogs, disabled, elderly who are put at risk every day due to distracted drivers, with limited parking and constant close calls, red light and crosswalk violators and double parked vehicles, whom are all at risk, of being harmed or worse.
Our group has volunteers (residents) whom have been monitoring this intersection, nearly every day for the past ten years and have seen first hand -- a great increase of near misses and accidents and bad driving. We started forming Safety Teams, made up of volunteer local residents, to come out to help others, to be safe.
Even more so, since the beginning of this 2020 COVID-19 Pandemic that made everyone wary of nearly everything, especially fast ride share and food delivery drivers.
Folks who make more money -- the faster (and more reckless) they drive -- are of special concern. They are like Domino Pizza drivers from the 80's trying to deliver pizzas in a half hour or less. Many innocent folks died because of the "Avoid the Noid" campaign. Same thing happens now with ride share and delivery drivers who often drive fast, cut corners, block streets and sidewalks, especially when they are preoccupied with and distracted by their phone devices.
Domino's drivers (under pressure to drive faster) killed many people in their "paid rush" and Domino's Pizza was sued for Wrongful Death for over $70 Million Dollars and they stopped their "faster deliveries" promotions, shortly thereafter. Paying desperate drivers to have to "drive faster" to make more money (or avoid complaints for late deliveries) endangers us all.
Most of them speed, run lights and cut into crosswalks "rolling" are almost all looking at their Smart Phones, while doing so. Not paying proper attention to all the vulnerable humans, babies and pets all around them. We often yell to stop cars and bikes who are rolling into pedestrians in the crosswalks and NOT paying attention. They are staring at their devices, while their vehicle is rolling into people and often pedestrians are on their devices and do not see the vehicle rolling towards them.
When a person stops suddenly in the crosswalk or changes direction (i.e. to avoid some other obstacle or vehicle cutting them off - like a bike or scooter illegally riding in the crosswalk), the distracted driver will not be able to avoid a collision, because they are NOT paying attention. We see these instances several times a day, every day. It's worse when Monday & Tuesday drunks are out driving.
Many of the pedestrians are also distracted making it all the more dangerous for everyone. When they walk in crosswalks with ear plugs or headphones on, they can't even hear when we shout to alert them about an oncoming hazard or emergency vehicles, which is kind of terrifying to watch every day.
We wonder why they have such an inflated sense of safety, in an environment that is totally busy and dangerous. If they were paying attention, they could see danger coming and take action to save themselves and others. But, if they are walking around carefree, blind and deaf, it's only a matter of time before they get hit by a bike or car, who's driver isn't paying attention; driving recklessly.
*** To Be Updated ***
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