Residents are calling on city officials to put an end to a years-long trend of dangerous driving in an Ontario neighborhood that has led to many serious crashes – at least one fatal.
According to neighbors living along 6th Street, reckless driving and speeding have caused countless accidents around their homes – drivers oftentimes crash into their parked cars, leaving them totaled.
Just last summer, a driver crashed into several parked cars along 6th Street, killing two people and injuring another two.
“They crashed my neighbors’ three times, my son-in-law, my daughter and my grandson,” local resident Teresa Velasquez told KTLA’s Angeli Kakade.
Velasquez has been living on 6th Street for 30 years and said the stretch between Benson and Mountain Avenues has been a growing problem with navigating systems offering up the residential road as an alternative to the 10 Freeway.
Residents said this creates a problem for the neighborhood’s safety because the re-routed travellers don’t usually adhere to the 35 miles-per-hour speed limit.
Velasquez said it’s not rare to see drivers going 50-60 mph, and, according to these neighbors, speed isn’t always the only factor in the dangerous driving.
On this particular stretch of 6th Street, residents said little islands were installed to help calm traffic – but instead, they created an opportunity for more hazards.
“It just turns out to be a slalom course for the kids,” said resident Guy Scalise.
Several islands along 6th Avenue are often missed by drivers who, when speeding, try to swerve around them. Instead, they lose control and end up crashing into parked cars.
“There was a tree there with a light on it, but that got run over twice,” said Scalise.
With the latest crash as recently as two days ago, neighbors said they’ve had it. Scalise said he started installing cameras as a good deed to help his neighbors with insurance claims.
“They’ll send a motorcycle cop out for like two days for a couple of hours in the middle of the afternoon, not morning rush hour, not evening rush hour, not late at night when the kids are going really fast,” said Scalise.
Velasquez said that after dozens of calls to city hall, more action needs to be taken.
“Why don’t they care about us? Why don’t they care about the people having accidents?” questioned Velasquez.
KTLA reached out to city officials, who said they are looking into the issue.
