The battle against the road pirates becomes a source of tension in the city council. The bureaucracy connected to the installation of raised pedestrian crossings is an obstacle in the battle for the safety of pedestrians: very long times, decisions that are not easily understandable, works that inexplicably do not start. The president of the Mobility Commission, Nino Simeoneafter reporting dozens of dangerous situations, wrote directly to mayor Manfredi and the letter concludes with a heartfelt appeal “I ask you to act personally on this situation, because accidents involving pedestrians are increasing exponentially and we can no longer tolerate it”.
Road accidents claim too many victims in the city. Eleven since the beginning of the year, four in May alone, two of which were hit and killed while crossing the road. The urgent need for speed retarders is there for all to see, because dangerous situations occur every day. The latest yesterday just before dawn when a car going at high speed lost control on the street Cavalleggeri d’Aostacrashed into two parked cars and then careened, finishing the race with its wheels in the air.
The driver, miraculously, emerged from the cockpit unharmed. The time the accident occurred, four in the morning, prevented there being other people involved. But just look at the images of the car recovered by the firefighters to understand the drama of the accident. «Well, you just have to look at those images to ask yourself what you expect to intervene with speed bumps», Nino Simeone doesn’t stop waving the banner of his battle because he doesn’t accept that the risks remain so high.
In his letter to the mayor, after recalling the dozens of dangerous situations reported, for which no one took action, Simeone explains that he had received absurd responses to his requests: «Unfortunately I must note, despite myself, that these requests, motivated and substantiated by objective elements, I continue to receive the same verbal response from the competent municipal managers, namely that the decision on the installation of these speed bumps would be left to assessments by the Prefecture he was born in Safety table, according to a criterion that makes me shudder: these slowing down devices would be installed only on the basis of a formula that considers the number of accidents that occur on that specific city road and the resulting mortality rate. Madness! Such a procedure cannot exist and in any case I believe it is not possible to accept such a condition, because a good Administration cannot wait for these dramatic events to occur to intervene, but must prevent them”.
Simeone is determined to get to the bottom of this matter. He explains that he has ascertained that the choices do not depend directly on the Prefecture and that a simple (and rapid) discussion table would be enough to prepare for the creation of the raised pedestrian crossings.
In fact, even after overcoming every bureaucratic obstacle, the material construction of the raised strips progresses with pachydermal slowness, despite the negligible cost of the operation: a raised passage costs 5,800 euros, crumbs for the municipal budget. In March the council started procedures for six special crossings on three roads in the city, Corso Vittorio Emanuele, via Terracina And via Leonardi Cattolica: currently none of those crossings have been built. Anm should take care of it, having had the definitive assignment for more than a month now but for now it has only placed some vertical signs with signs that inform motorists of the speed bumps which, however, are not there yet.
At the beginning of May, the fatal investment of the company caused a sensation 21 year old Sara Romano which occurred twenty meters from the place where the raised pedestrian crossing should have already been built. If there had been, the SUV that hit her and killed her would have had to slow down and today Sara would probably still be with her family and her friends.
To get around the slowness of bureaucracy, individual municipalities are trying to organize themselves in an alternative way. Two days ago the tenth municipality which deals with Bagnoli and Fuorigrotta, prepared a speed limitation intervention by creating small bumps on the road. They are not the raised stripes, but they could still achieve a good result with respect to speed moderation. Eleven different elevations will be set up, divided between via Cupa Terracina, via Metastasio And via Canzanella Vecchia, all extremely lively streets on which many pedestrians pass. It’s a way to try to save some lives while waiting for decisions from the central administration: “Decisions that will arrive soon – Simeone thunders – will be my daily commitment and I won’t give up until the results arrive”.
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