Two days after four-year-old Ivan Pierre was killed by a hit-and-run driver, Boston Police posted a speed trap in the boy’s neighborhood. Several vehicles were pulled over -- many drivers clearly exceeding the 25-mile-per-hour limit.
To catch those speeders, a Boston Police officer positioned himself at the intersection of Wood Avenue and Safford Street -- the same crossing where a surveillance camera picked up what may be the vehicle involved in Tuesday’s incident.
The hatchback vehicle can be seen speeding through the intersection toward Wood Avenue. Moments later, Pierre was struck and killed.
Jacqueline Bailey lives near that intersection. For twenty years she’s been after the city to do something to slow down speeders.
“Over the last six years I’ve probably put in 25 complaints,” Bailey said. “Over the last two months, I know I put in at least four -- one as recent as yesterday.”
Bailey thinks the intersection needs a traffic light -- as in red, yellow and green.
“Not the raggedy yellow poles, the raggedy white poles that get run over and make our community worse,” she said. “Put a signal light there. Maybe that will help to save a life.”
Bailey has children and grandchildren. She said it can be a risky proposition to cross the street.
“That crosswalk you see there? They don’t pay attention to that,” Bailey said. “We try to cross the street to get to the park, we have to stand back -- not just wait -- but stand back the way some of them speed.”
As a mother and grandmother, Bailey said she was heartbroken over Ivan Pierre’s death.
“When I’m in these areas, I drive like kids are in the street,” Bailey said. “Because you don’t know -- you do not know -- if a kid is coming from behind a car because he got loose from his Mom.”
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