A plea to put the brakes on speeders

By Charles Sercombe

It’s one thing to sit on your porch and be annoyed by speeding motorists zooming down your block.

But it becomes clearly more than a mere annoyance when a speeding motorist crashes his car into your house.

And for Juliane Kania, who lives on the corner of Gallagher and Jacob, that wasn’t the first time it has happened.

Two weeks ago, a 16-year-old boy driving with only a learner’s permit and without adult supervision rammed into her house, destroying a large brick portion. The building, a former storefront on the bottom and a living space above, is now uninhabitable because the foundation has been compromised.

Police told Kania that the boy was likely travelling 50 to 60 miles per hour.

“We have so many speeders and accidents on that corner,” she told the City Council last Tuesday night.   

Kania and her neighbors asked to have a traffic officer patrol there and nab the speeders.

Ray Olko, who lives across the street, said the problem is worse when there is a football game at nearby Keyworth Stadium and after high school lets out.

“I get out there and yell at them to slow their rear ends down,” Olko said.

On Wednesday, Police Chief James Doyle said he was unaware of the problem but would assign a traffic cop to the area.

“We’ll get someone with a radar and start writing tickets. We have zero tolerance,” Doyle said. “That’s what we do, correct bad driving.”

He also noted that occasionally trouble spots pop up in the city but fortunately there have been no serious accidents or deaths in recent years. 

(A version of this story first appeared online at hamtramckcitizen.com.)