Vehicles continue to crash into Northeast residence; family asks city for help
In the span of just eight days, a Northeast El Paso family has had two vehicles crash right through their yard, one of them smashing into the house and the other stopping less than a foot away.
So what’s the City doing about it?
Kelly Perkins lives in the house along with her 10 and 11 year-old daughters. She has jokingly taken to calling the bend on Sun Valley at Menzies: “Dead Man’s Curve.” She’s just hoping something can be done before someone’s killed.
“She doesn’t want to go to sleep in her room even though I moved her bed,” Perkins said of her daughter Kate. “Every night, ‘I’m too scared to sleep, I’m too scared to sleep.'”
That’s understandable after two vehicles plowed through the Perkin’s yard in eight days. Perkins is now pleading for help from the City, which was there installing metal posts Monday in place of the wooden ones there before.
“It’s more of a response than I’ve ever really had,” Perkins said. Asked if she felt a better about it, she replied: “A little bit. A little bit.”
Other homes in El Paso along curves have done a few things to protect themselves. A home at the corner of Resler and Dorsey is lined with huge boulders in the front yard landscaping and a massive planter after having cars drive into the yard.
“The City has always told me, ‘Don’t do that,'” Perkins said. “‘If somebody crashes, they’ll get hurt. Don’t do that.'”
When asked what about her safety, Perkins simply smiled and shrugged. “It’s an unfortunate situation, but basically the problem is people are driving too fast,” City Rep. Carl Robinson said, pointing out there are already signs ahead of of the curve that read 20 miles per hour. “They still go 30-40-50 miles per hour.”
What about speed humps? City Planner Justin Bass was asked about that on Sunday’s ABC-7 Xtra. “Say you do put a speed cushion on a street, you run the risk of actually pushing that traffic into residential neighborhoods,” Bass said.
“We talked about raising the curb,” Robinson added. “But then if we raise the curb we run into problems with accessibility for ADA.”
Robinson said he met with the City Streets department on Monday.
“We put the guardrail and put the metal reinforcements out there already,” Robinson said. “But we’re looking to see if there’s any other options that’s available to us right now.”
“I’ve seen this for 36 years and they’ve never done anything,” she said, “so why would I assume they are going to change it now?”
Perkins said she’s like to see rumble strips or a flashing light installed before someone gets hurt.
