A mother fights to bring safety back to her home
Shannon LeClair – Times Reporter
One Strathmore mother’s worst fear came to life on June 6, when a car hit her two-and-a-half-year-old daughter. Christie Meyers has always worried about her children’s safety when it comes to traffic on her street, Centre Street. When she was in Grade Eight she had been crossing the street to talk to her mother when she was hit by a car, and almost six weeks ago her daughter Karlee was hit. In Christie’s case she feels it was a case of miscommunication, both her and the driver stopped, each probably thinking the other had stopped for them, and both started to go again at the same time. Karlee had been chasing a bird when she darted out between parked cars and onto the street. Fortunately the driver had already been going under the posted speed limit and though Karlee was hospitalized for five days she is doing well.
“I don’t blame the driver. I don’t want her to think I’m doing this to blame her, I just think something needs to be done about this street,” said Christie. She plans to go before the Town at the council meeting on July 21 to see what can be done to make her street safer.
“I’m going to the town and I’m going to talk to them about putting in stop signs mostly, and the lack of visibility. Hopefully something will come out of it and be done about the road so you feel safe, because I don’t feel safe on this road.”
The only reason the Meyers bought a house on Centre Street is because they have four children and Christie runs a home business, and the house drew her in with all the space it provided to her, and her family.
The door has a latch at the top and when it is open, it speaks saying the door is open; Christie had it installed because she was already paranoid about the street she had moved onto.
“Basically my worst fear came true, the fear that I had when I moved here happened,” said Christie. Karlee physically is doing better, but she is traumatized and continues having nightmares.
High speeds have always been an issue Christie has noticed on her street.
“I have driven down this road seeing kids playing unsupervised and thought one of them is going to get hit by a car, and then mine does,” said Christie.
“It makes me sick and angry every time a car goes racing by and I think that could have been the one that hit my daughter and she would not be here today.”
She believes three way stops would help to slow down traffic on Centre Street, and hopefully make it a less attractive road to travel unless necessary. Christie wanted to thank her family, friends, the fire department, STARS, EMS, both the Strathmore and Children’s hospital and Dr. Douglas and the RCMP, for all of their help with the accident. At this point she does not plan to gather people to come to council with her but said if a petition is needed and people would like to sign, they can contact her at christie.meyers@gmail.com