Truck crashes into Framingham home during town's road safety meeting

FRAMINGHAM, Mass. — A pick-up truck smashed into a Framingham home Tuesday night at the same time a meeting addressing such traffic concerns was wrapping up.

Mary-Anne Tratchel was inside her Nipmuc Road home working on her computer when she felt the impact.

"All of a sudden, we just felt the house shake and the bang, and we found a gentleman in his pickup truck on our front stoop," Tratchel said.

The driver had apparently careened down Gilbert Street and across busy Nipmuc Road. The intersection of the two streets, which are popular cut-throughs for drivers, doesn't have a stop sign or a crosswalk.

Tratchel said drivers speed through the densely populated area as if it's not a neighborhood. She said she has been asking the city to implement signage since she moved into her home two years ago.

The driver was not seriously injured and the crash was not deemed criminal, Tratchel said.

"It could've been much worse," Tratchel said. "One of the kids could've been mowing the lawn and gotten hit, and that's something I don't even want to think about."

Ironically, at the time of the crash, members of the Coburnville-Tripoli Neighborhood Association had been meeting with the newly formed city Traffic Commission about what the group considers dangerous intersections, including the Nipmuc area, as well as Bethany Road and Winthrop Street.

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"We get out of the meeting and turn on our phones, and we see the post of the unfortunate accident of the person running into the house," said John Stefanini, a former state representative and former selectman who is currently running for city council. "It was just infuriating."

Stefanini, who is clerk of the neighborhood group and has lived in the area his entire life, told Boston 25 News he has been pushing for the city to fund a traffic study and implement new safety measures.

"We need to do something. This intersection here has had 32 accidents in the last two years," Stefanini said of Bethany Road and Winthrop Street.

Stefanini believes one factor is drivers taking unfamiliar routes because of using navigation software, like Waze, and creeping into traffic they cannot see. The recent narrowing of one of the streets also limits space and visibility, he said.

"[The problem] relates to the fact that people are taking unfamiliar roads, traveling at excess speeds that they should not be traveling," Stefanini said. "And we as a community, need to come to grips with it and need to develop a solution."

Residents hope to see a flashing stop sign, a four-way stop or a partial one-way road.

Boston 25 News reached out to the city but did not receive comment by the time the story was filed Wednesday night.

Cox Media Group