Residents call for speed bumps on Peppertree Drive in Oldsmar

A number of residents of Peppertree Drive in Oldsmar have asked for speed bumps to be installed on their street due to the excessive amount of speeders in the area.

Peppertree Drive Oldsmar

Residents on Peppertree Drive in Oldsmar have petitioned the city to install speed bumps on the street, which they say is prone to excessive speeding, particularly near this dangerous “ess” curve.

If you hang out long enough near the “ess” curve on Peppertree Drive in Oldsmar, it’s only a matter of time before you spot someone speeding through the turn like a Dale Earnhardt Jr. or Danica Patrick wannabe, weaving through the curve without so much as a tap on the brakes.

And by long enough I mean roughly five minutes, based on informal observations made during a recent visit to the street, which serves as a cut-through for drivers trying to skirt the lights at nearby Tampa and Curlew Roads.

The constant barrage of dangerous drivers has led a group of concerned residents to ask the city to install speed bumps to help curb the excessive speeding.

“I’m here to ask you tonight for speed bumps to be placed onto our road,” Chris Brockett, who moved to the street a year ago, told the City Council on June 7.

Chris Brockett speaks before the City Council on June 7, 2016.

Chris Brockett speaks before the City Council on June 7, 2016.

“We have several reasons that we’re asking for them to be placed,” he continued. “The speed limit on the road is 25 miles an hour, but there is an ess curve on the road and nobody seems to follow the posted speed limit…of 15 miles an hour. Cars are going way too fast through there.”

Brockett said he and other new residents in the area are afraid to allow their kids to play outside their homes due to the speeders, and he stated that he’s seen a number of close calls over the last year.

“There‘s been several near misses of cars nearly running over kids, and adults,” he said, adding, “Every other day, somebody goes into (my neighbor’s) yard.”

Brockett presented the council with a petition signed by the majority of his neighbors asking the city to install the speed bumps, but he said they were told that based on the results of an earlier traffic study, their request was being denied despite the fact that a young girl was killed in the area roughly a decade ago.

“We don’t want to feel like a prisoner in our own house because people won’t slow down in our neighborhood,” Brockett said.

Some council members were quick to support the residents’ request.

Council member Jerry Beverland.

Council member Jerry Beverland.

“Let me tell you, Peppertree is a dangerous street,” Council member Jerry Beverland said.

“I was on the council when the little girl got killed, and if you go down there, people…do speed.”

“We’ve always put it on the council agenda and voted on it if the majority of people on that street signed the petition,” he added. “I suggest we put it on the next agenda and vote on it.”

The item did appear on the June 21 council agenda, but when it came up, Beverland backtracked a bit, stating the issue needed to go through the proper process before the council could vote on it.

“We’ve had a request for a traffic calming item in a particular part of our city, and there’s a process I wasn’t aware of,” Beverland said on Tuesday night.

“So what I would like to do is make a motion that we go ahead and follow the process and send this to the TRC (Technical Review Committee), then they will bring it back to the council, and the council will make the final decision.”

Oldsmar Mayor Doug Bevis.

Oldsmar Mayor Doug Bevis.

City Manager Bruce Haddock explained the steps involved, which include a review by the TLC and a meeting with residents in the neighborhood, followed by a final action by the council.

Mayor Doug Bevis and Vice-Mayor Eric Seidel agreed with the decision.

“I’d like to see the process out and then review it all in its entirety,” Bevis said. “I’d rather see the numbers and the facts and everything.”

“My feeling on it is…if the citizens who live there want a speed bump, they should get a speed bump,” Seidel said. “And that’s essentially what this process does.”

The mayor said the issue would go before the TLC sometime in July, and afterwards, officials will schedule the meeting with the community members.

After the meeting, some concerned Peppertree residents expressed their thoughts about the delay.

“We’ve been asking for help with this for almost a year, with no luck,” Shannon Karczewski, who like Brockett, moved to the street last summer, told Oldsmar Connect.

“We were hopeful before tonight this would get resolved, but now we don’t know.”

Peppertree Drive Oldsmar

This section of Peppertree Drive in Oldsmar sees a large amount of dangerous drivers, according to residents who have petitioned the city to install speed bumps on the street.

Karczewski’s husband, Brad, backed Brockett’s claims about the constant close-calls on the street.

“In the last year we’ve had four mailboxes and numerous trash cans run over, we’ve had street signs knocked down, and one woman almost got hit while walking her dog,” he said.

“We’ve got every house on the street except one in favor of the speed bumps, and we hope this gets resolved before somebody gets hurt there. Again.”

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One Response
  1. Carolyn A 8 years ago

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