There was a pretty bad car accident on Smith Street over the weekend and it’s led to the formation of new group to talk about and try to do something about traffic safety issues on both Court and Smith Streets, which like many local streets, often feature drivers going way to fast for what are local streets. Here’s a description of the Friday night incident from an email circulated on BoCoCa Parents:

Last evening around 6:30 pm I saw a terrible car accident on Smith street. An SUV was barreling down Smith and hit a car coming onto Smith from Sackett, smashing into the turning car and pushing the car onto the sidewalk on the Southwest corner. Thank God no one was injured badly but if any pedestrian had been standing there on the sidewalk would have been certainly killed. I personally was about to cross the street with my husband and it is only a few seconds before we turned to cross that the accident happened. It could have been us.

This, in turn, led someone connected to Streets Blog, to start something on the Livable Streets Network called “Court and Smith Safer Streets Coalition.”

Here’s the description of the new effort, which has been created by someone who is also a neighborhood resident:

We are people who live, work and do business in the neighborhoods
around Court and Smith streets in Brooklyn. We’re concerned about traffic in the neighborhood and how it affects the lives of the people who use these streets–especially children and the elderly. We want to work for solutions that will lead to a more pleasant, pedestrian-friendly environment…Over the next few days, I’ll be adding more features to the group and asking as many people as I can think of to join. I urge you to do the same. This is not by any means my project, or any one person’s. It has to be, and should be, a group effort. Together, we can organize to lobby the DOT and Community Board for
traffic-calming measures, contact legislators and local business organizations for support, etc. We can also take advantage of the experience of other neighborhoods and communities.

We’re sure we’ll be hearing more about this one.