The slow driving on Stetson Avenue no longer is as prevalent. While many vehicles still admirably slow down in the school zone, I see too many people drive fast. They pass vehicles in a right-turn-only lane or weave through traffic. They must have forgotten that awful afternoon.
I’ve been ticked for several months while watching people speed by the school.
On Wednesday, I did something foolish. I scolded a middle-aged man who passed cars quickly. He forced his way across traffic to a left-turn lane and stopped at a red light.
I pulled up alongside him and sternly told him that he had just sped and weaved through the school-zone scene of an awful accident. I explained that driving slowly by the school was an admirable response by the community to the crash and a sign of respect to the injured students.
I was, of course, stupid to challenge a rude driver. He obviously was a jerk.
Who knows? He could have been violent. He could have carried a gun.
Instead of shooting, the driver mocked me. He extending his hand toward me and rapidly snapped his fingers, apparently signaling that what I was saying was babble. The light changed and he sped off.
The Hemet High campus is on the south side of Stetson Avenue in East Hemet. The school’s athletic stadium and student parking lot is on the north side of the busy street.
Extreme measures were taken to make crossing the street safe. A median with a tall steel fence divides most of Stetson Avenue in front of the school. It blocks students from making dangerous crossings.
There are traffic signalcontrolled crosswalks at both ends of the block. A third crosswalk with a traffic light passes through an opening of the median in the middle of the block, which was where the students were run over.
On that horrible afternoon two years ago, about 30 students were in the midblock crosswalk after school when a student-driven truck was unable to stop because of faulty brakes, a California Highway Patrol investigation determined. The truck plowed through the students. It was a frantic scene. Shocked onlookers rushed to help. Ambulances arrived to transport the injured to hospitals.
Thankfully, and amazingly, no one died.
Following the accident, I was glad to see drivers make an extra effort to slow when passing through the school zone. For awhile, driving by Hemet High was similar to passing through Highway 395 speed-trap towns such as Lone Pine, Independence and Bishop on the east side of the High Sierra.
No more. Many cars impressively still drive slowly by the school. Many others pass by the campus driving much too fast.
I wish they would remember May 30, 2012, when they pass Hemet High and, for that matter, any school anywhere.
That horrible crash never should be forgotten.
Contact Bob Pratte at 951-368-9078 or [email protected]
BOB PRATTE/STAFF
Stetson Avenue in front of Hemet High is where eight students were hit by a truck nearly two years ago.