Our Children’s Safety and Our Castro Valley Streets

Dear Editor,

School had gotten out and we were headed home. We took our usual route down Santa Maria Ave. towards Castro Valley Blvd. As we passed the Village entry to the left I saw that the green right turn arrow on the light ahead was still green but red for the vehicles on my left. Many large SUV vehicles were on my left obstructing all views of any thing on that side. As we approached the intersection my older son gave me a sharp warning to possibly come to a halt. Even though we had the green light, my son saw a boy on a skateboard coming across the walk. The walk had the red hands and at no point was anyone supposed to cross (thus the green arrow for us). As I came to a halt I honked the horn, the boy skateboarded across with his earbuds in completely clueless that he almost was in a serious accident. I have now have trouble forgetting this incident. There are a few things here to learn as a parent. Teach your kids to respect the road rules, with ow crazy the roads are these day it is dangerous enough already when we are obeying the rules. Secondly, please at least take one earbud out if not both when going across intersections. Lastly, never assume anything, even if a car is supposed to stop I tell my kids to be wary of their actually doing so. I wish the green arrow could go away and it could just be a red light with everyone just making a normal red light stop and turn but somewhere someone decided it would help traffic flow to add this light feature. Even though it would not have been my fault, I never want to go through that close of a call again, I will most likely avoid that right turn on to Castro Valley Blvd from San Miguel Ave if possible. I know the boy would have been at fault but I would prefer to make our roads safer by deleting the green right turn arrow feature forever and stop and make a right turn instead.

–Todd Larudee, Castro Valley