Where's The Fire? - Some at City Hall Need to Slow Down

[Lori Allen _]

I create this post not to criticize anyone in particular, but to remind City Hall that they should be reminding their employees to drive with caution and within speed limits, especially when operating city vehicles.

Early this afternoon, I was eastbound on Clifton near Belle. Seemingly out of nowhere, a gray Ford LTD with city plate # 126YRY passes me at a fairly high rate of speed in the left lane. After the vehicle passed me, the vehicle's speed appeared to increase even more. The vehicle's seemingly over-the-speed-limit driving behavior continued until the vehicle turned south on Cove toward City Hall. This is indeed a City of Lakewood vehicle, as I have seen it in City Hall's parking lot and at work sites on numerous occasions. I believe it is mainly driven by public works employees.

Since I keep a dashcam in my vehicle, I reviewed the footage upon returning home. With a stopwatch, I discovered that this city vehicle traveled about 0.33 miles (roughly from Belle to Bunts) in 26.1 seconds. Anyone familiar with physics knows that distance/time = speed. This vehicle's average speed between Belle & Bunts was about 46 miles per hour.

This is not the first time I have seen city employees driving in a seemingly irresponsible manner. Last summer, I was behind (or should I say “left in the dust” by) a city water department vehicle driving between 40-50 miles per hour on Cranford and Northland. Very dangerous and irresponsible, in my opinion.

This is just a friendly request for City Hall to kindly remind their employees of speed limits and expected behaviors when operating city vehicles, especially on residential streets and streets with schools. The last thing City Hall needs right now is a negligence/wrongful death suit if somebody gets injured/killed due to someone's heavy foot.

You can see the city vehicle in question passing me on the left in this video. I was driving about the speed limit, not significantly under.

[Jim O'Bryan]

Lori

Lakewood took this report seriously, and had a quick talk with the person driving the car.

"Late to a meeting," and apologized when I ran into him, said he might of been over 35, but not 46.

He assured me he will drive slower in the future.

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