'No, no, no, no, not again!'
Well guess what another traffic mishap and for this woman in the story twice in a year. I bet she feels like the Air Boss in Top Gun who gets coffee spilled on him when Maverick flies by.
To the road engineers --> curbs, guard rails, medians, new speed limit
To the police --> targeted enforcement on this road
Here is the article from the Standard
No, no, no, no, not again!'
Posted By MATTHEW VAN DONGEN, STANDARD STAFF
Updated 4 hours ago
Jean Keyes has a problem with strangers parking in her house.
You read that right. Inside the building, usually in the living room.
It happened for the second time in less than a year early Tuesday morning, when a Pontiac Sunfire driver lost control on a curve and smashed through the front of her home at 84 Merritt St.
"I heard the bang, but I still couldn't believe it at first," said Keyes, who lives in the back of the home but rents out the much-abused front apartment. "I just started saying, 'No. No, no, no, not again! Then I started to cry."
Last March, it was a Cadillac that crashed into the living room of the one-bedroom apartment. Different car; same parking spot. Keyes said her male tenant was shaken but unhurt by the 3 a. m. collision. She's not sure whether he'll stay, however. "After the last time, I told everyone not to worry. I've been here for 25 years; it won't happen again. Now what do I say?"
Keyes figures she's on a "bad corner."
Her siding-covered bungalow sits on the escarpment near the top of the Merritt Street hill, close to Ball Avenue East.
Northbound cars and trucks routinely speed down the slightly curved hill, neighbours said.
Not all of them stay on the road. "Some of them don't slow down," said Tom Hillier, a neighbour for 21 years. "We've had more than one accident on this hill."
Hillier remembers a motorcycle collision just downhill from Keyes' home and a fatal car crash near the intersection. And last year's spectacular flying home invasion, of course.
"That one was worse," said Bill McMenemy, now an expert on crash landings in the building.
McMenemy works for Greg Miller Restoration, which is rebuilding Keyes' front apartment for the second time. The original house-crasher actually jumped a guardrail, became airborne and bulled its way completely inside the building.
The latest unwelcome visitor only managed partial entry, said the contractor.
"It's still pretty awful, though," he said, gazing at the mangled white siding, snapped wooden studs and overturned couch. "I thought we rebuilt it twice as strong the first time. Now maybe we're going to have to put in 12- inch blocks or something."
The latest crash caused an estimated $50,000 in damage, but Keyes said repairs from both crashes are covered by insurance.
That doesn't mean she's content to continue living in a vehicular backstop.
A curving metal guardrail on Merritt Street protects the front of Keyes' house, and some of the side. The original crashing car mangled part of the protective fence, and Keyes believes the city shortened it during repairs.
"We need a better guardrail, and a bigger one," she said. "Something needs to be done. This is just ridiculous." Kris Jacobson, the city's manager of transportation services, said the guardrail was fixed last year, but he doesn't know if it was shortened.
He does know the city will investigate the safety of that section of Merritt Street.
"We're going to review it and see if there's anything we can do," he said. "A house is struck twice in a year? Obviously it's a concern for us."
The driver of the crashed car was taken to hospital and treated for a cut to his face.
Thorold resident James Parks, 27, is charged with impaired driving.
Article ID# 1430236
