This webpage is the first example of how traffic calming is known to kill people. Here is the second Example. Remember no one is asking for an end to traffic calming, just TC reform. There are better TC-devices than those that create obstructions and vertical or horizontal thrusts.

By Don Kazak Palo Alto Weekly California

NORTH FAIR OAKS: Traffic controls may be challenged

Some residents blame traffic circle for fatal accident

Some residents of the North Fair Oaks neighborhood north of Menlo Park may go to court in an attempt to remove the various traffic circles, chokers and chicanes that have served as traffic-calming devices since 1993.

Some residents also blame a traffic circle at 14th Avenue and Fair Oaks Avenue for a fatal traffic accident July 12.

"This is a situation that creates danger," said Stan Buetens, a 17th Avenue resident who has long opposed the traffic devices. "We consider the circle as the cause of the accident."

The accident happened at 7:30 p.m. July 12 when a 1996 Dodge Ram pickup truck driven by Rick Nelson of Redwood City was traveling north on Fair Oaks Avenue and apparently hit the edge of the traffic circle at 14th. According to the California Highway Patrol, Nelson lost control of the truck, which may have been speeding. The truck then crashed into a tree at 15th Avenue.

Nelson, 26, died that night at Stanford Hospital. Two passengers in his truck were pulled from the wreck by firefighters from the Menlo Park Fire Protection District station on the corner, and were treated at the hospital and released.

The CHP is still waiting for laboratory tests to determine if Nelson had been drinking.

"Here, a guy may have been speeding. It may have been his fault, but he was killed," Buetens said. Buetens argues that the traffic circles "didn't give him a second chance. If you make the slightest mistake, you're in real trouble."

Buetens claims that five different kinds of the traffic-calming devices in North Fair Oaks are illegal because they are not authorized by the state Department of Transportation. He said he plans to file a lawsuit to get the devices removed.

North Fair Oaks received the traffic devices beginning in 1993 after a spirited community debate which showed that the devices had both fans and detractors. The devices are designed to reduce speeding and cut through traffic on side streets in the neighborhood, which is bordered by Marsh Road, Middlefield Road, 5th Avenue, and the railroad tracks.

Before the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors voted to install the devices in 1993, a survey of the 1,700-home neighborhood was taken in which 66 percent of those responding said they favored the traffic devices.

County Supervisor Ruben Barrales, whose district includes North Fair Oaks, said there has always been some opposition to the devices. "Stan and a handful of neighbors have opposed the devices," he said. "But they have been successful in calming traffic, and most of the neighbors support them."

Barrales said if the CHP determines that the barrier was somehow responsible for the accident that killed Rick Nelson, he'd be willing to reevaluate the issue. "I'm always willing to evaluate if there has been a hazard," Barrales said.