KEARNS, Utah (ABC 4 News) - The Speed Zapper is back in action this week. This time ABC 4's Brian Carlson is heading to Kearns to calm the fears of a few worried parents who said speeders on their street are out of control.
Brian Hales said cars on Impressions Drive treat his street like a speedway.
“People just rally,” said Hales, Kearns resident.
With two young boys at home, he's worried they're going to get hit.
“I'm out with the kids, you gotta keep your eyes on them all the time. And I'm tired of being the crazy guy screaming in the road,” said Hales.
So we took action, brought out our friends with Unified Police, and found one after the other, cars came speeding up the hill near Hales' home. One woman was driving nearly double the 25 mile-an-hour limit.
"I stopped you today because you were doing 46 in a 25,” said the officer to the woman.
And police wrote her a hefty fine. Another mother -
“Do you know how fast you were going?” asked Reporter Brian Carlson.
”I was doing 37,” said the other mother.
- said she was late and wasn't paying attention.
“Do you think it makes it right though?” asked Carlson.
“Oh no, not by any means. No, I'm always stepping out into the middle of the road telling people to slow down on my road, so I should probably do what I preach,” said the mother.
And while we had her at the pulpit, she gave us a bit of a confession.
”Just between you and me is this the first time you've been speeding?” Carlson asked.
“No not all at. In fact my kids have a nickname for me. I probably shouldn't say… they call me Momio Andretti sometimes,” she said.
What's worse, police said moms like these are becoming the norm in Salt Lake neighborhoods.
“Which is unfortunate because we have a lot more kids that are out on the streets, crossing the streets, and we get a lot more auto-peds,” said Officer Lance Bess, Unified Police Dept.
And while we stopped speeders for the better part of an hour, our worried dad is hoping our message will have a more lasting effect.
“Maybe this'll open up people's eyes before there's a tragedy,” said Hales.
If you need Brian to zap speeders in your neighborhood, let Brian know about it. Just go to the Speed Zapper section of abc4.com. Tell him about the problem. And he’ll zap ‘em.
