To the Editor:
For Safer Streets
It’s Super Bowl Sunday. Before I stuffed myself with the unwanted calories of the hype of the game with subs, my mom and I decided to go for a run in my neighborhood.
Just before turning onto a residential road, there was a little white dog chasing me around in the streets while I was screaming in terror (as I have an extreme phobia of dogs).##M:[more]##
After the dog ran away, my mom and I barely turned onto this road, when a group of teenagers came whizzing by on a 30 MPH road, going at least 50. They were hanging out of the sunroof, screaming, honking the horn, zig zagging across the road, anything to make even an experienced driver distracted.
To make matters worse, they turned too late onto my street and pounded the tree on someone’s front lawn, just minutes after I had been running around petrified of the dog. If I had been there any longer, I would have been killed. As if this day could have gone more awry, the police officer would not test the teens for drinking or drugs as they “showed no obvious signs of being under the influence,” the officer said.
I hate to speak out against a law enforcer, but by the way they had been driving it would have been obvious; something was definitely out of place. Their reckless driving could have killed me, or my seven year old brother, or my mother, or anyone who got in the way.
It was absolutely terrifying, being a freshman who knew these kids. Even if they weren’t drinking, there have been many cases of reckless driving among the teens of West Windsor and Plainsboro. How many teens have to die before people realize that driving is not like the video games they play?
Driving is real life, putting real lives in danger. In general, it is 37 times more likely that you will be in a car accident than a plane crash. Teens think that they can drive just because they’ve passed their drivers education classes, however they fail to realize how inexperienced they really are.
They think they can handle friends hanging out the sunroof, screaming, honking, standing up, but have their parents ever let them do that when they were in the car? I doubt that. Parents instilled the belief “You can do anything,” in their children, which isn’t bad to preach, however it makes them feel invincible. That’s the problem. “It will never be me.”
Honey, most car accidents are caused by teens between the ages of 15 and 20. It can be you. In 2000 there were a recorded 4,”877 teen deaths due to reckless driving. Of these towering numbers, 36 percent of the teens were under the influence, and 58 percent had been speeding. Both are preventable causes.
What if these teens had been drinking? It’s not so far fetched, as they are in high school. The numbers of high school teens drinking is on the rise, as Molly Brossman addressed in the Suburban Teen column in the January 25 WW-P News. Drinking has become quite a problem, there are fewer people who do it, but the ones who are drinking are hardcore.
It’s all because of pressures; social, academic, athletic, and parental pressures. It’s not just the straight A nerds who are drinking, there are the jocks, the Goths, the artistic, the populars, the preps, the outcasts, the burnouts. Everyone in high school undergoing pressure will at least try alcohol by their senior year, regardless if it’s against their religion.
That may come as a surprise to many adults; the teens who aren’t supposed to be drinking because it’s against their religion, are experimenting with alcohol. “The average age when youth first try alcohol is 11 years for boys and 13 years for girls. The average age at which Americans begin drinking regularly is 15.9 years old” (focusas.com).
Reading that disappoints me. It is pathetic that regular drinking can start as early as 15. I’m 15, and to be perfectly honest, drinking has never crossed my mind. My mother has a liquor cabinet full of hard liquor, wines, and beers, ready for company, yet never once did I think to try some when she left me home alone.
Lastly, the part that really irks me is what the police officer said. He elaborated and said that “they were just out for fun.” Excuse me officer, but crashing into my neighbor’s tree is not fun. Endangering lives is not fun. Terrifying the youth of the neighborhood is not fun.
What the police officer did was put down the community, and idolized the teens in the accident. By doing this did he teach them a lesson? No. They’re just going to do the same thing next weekend, on their way to the next party.
As a freshman, it is very discouraging to see my upperclassmen behave in such a manner; I would have thought they wanted to leave a precedent in our schools. I was so close to my house when the car accident occurred. Home is supposed to be a safe haven. Now I’m terrified that someone like those teens is going to run me over while I’m at my bus stop. Stop teen alcohol abuse and reckless driving.
Christie Dougherty
High School North
& Safer Bike Paths
Last November I was bicycling on the new paths in West Windsor. They are very nice but they lack metal poles at the intersections to prevent drivers from entering or from discouraging people on the paths from slowing down and looking in both directions before crossing. Meanwhile, there is a metal pole on either end of the footbridge over the Bear Brook adjacent to Community Park. There is no need for that metal pole. You should be slowing down when going down from the top of the bridge anyway.
All of this struck me as funny because last summer I was on the Harlem Valley Rail Trail, near the New York-Connecticut border. There are sometimes five metal poles at an intersection (three poles across, then two poles). Other intersections have two metal, non-overlapping gates across the path.
Please don’t tell me that West Windsor’s inaction was for budgetary reasons. I cannot take the news of a child on a bike being killed by a driver going too fast while the child was crossing the road on the bike path. I cannot take news like what happened when a driver drove one mile on the Henry Hudson Bikeway, killing a biker from East Brunswick. Do something now. Don’t wait for someone to be killed. Daniel Rappoport
Co-founder,
Princeton Freewheelers
Youth Umps Needed
West Windsor Little League is gearing up to launch its 52nd season this spring and with the games comes a need for umpires. For many years WWLL has used a combination of adult umpires and teenagers from the community to officiate its contests.
For the Youth Umpires (sometimes referred to as “cadets”), working for the Little League offers the opportunity to build leadership skills, stay involved with Little League baseball after their own years of playing eligibility are over — and earn some spending money.
The league uses cadet umps exclusively to work games in the 9-year-old division, as well as in its “minors” league for 10 and 11-year-olds. For its majors division adult umpires work home plate, with experienced Youth Umps manning the bases.
Youth Umps earn $20 per game for working the plate and $15 per game for the bases in their first season, and then earn higher pay in subsequent years, when they are considered veterans. During the 2007 season, some youth umps worked as many as 30 games.
The League provides a free training class for new umpires, starting Wednesday, February 20, and running each Wednesday evening for four weeks, plus one on-field clinic on March 30. Games are played every evening from early April through mid-June, with a full slate of games all day every Saturday.
The league provides the training, helps the kids complete their working papers, provides their equipment and uniforms, and schedules their assignments around their other activities. The boys who come back year after year really gain confidence and learn to handle the role of being in charge of the games. Several teenagers who came through the program are now working Babe Ruth and high school games as they get older.
For information about working as a youth umpire for West Windsor Little League, interested teenagers who will be age 14 by April 1 can go to www.wwll.org and register (for free). The league will send out information about the training classes to those who register. Kevin Chapman
WWLL Umpire Coordinator
43 Cartwright Drive
Photo Credits
I just received your January 25 paper and wanted to both thank and compliment Brian McCarthy on the swimming pictures.
I want to thank him for including a fabulous shot of my son, Robb Dunne, in those that he used for the article and compliment him on taking a number of pictures of the swimmers before or after their races were finished so that you really get to see the faces.
Thank you and great job, Brian.
Bob Dunne
Stage Credits
I just wanted to thank you for the wonderful article you wrote about me and our production of “Driving Miss Daisy” in the West Windsor-Plainsboro News. I can’t find the words to tell you how grateful I am for your support, or how pleased I am over how well the article turned out.
Dan Maurer
Producer and director, Maurer Productions OnStage
Editor’s Note: The production continues at Kelsey Theater through Sunday, February 10. Call 609-570-3333. or visit www.kelseytheatre.net.
