BUFFALO, N.Y. — After an early Saturday morning car accident left numerous parked cars damaged, dinged, and totaled, neighbors wonder what is being done to combat speeding drivers down their community street.
“I heard a big noise, boom, boom,” said M.D. Islam, who lives near the scene of the crash.
A car sped through East Amherst Street in Buffalo around 1:23 a.m., said police, leaving a line of damaged cars in its wake. According to the police report, the driver, Waulik Jeader, 48, was charged with driving while intoxicated and speeding. Tires, bumpers, and other car parts were still littered on the sidewalk of E Amherst St between Poultney Ave. and Thatcher Ave. on Monday.
“I hear acceleration of a car, bottoming out of a car, and then a bunch of crashes. I ran outside and a cloud of smoke. It's seven or eight cars I believe that were hit,” said neighbor Langston Oliver.
Police say the driver hit one car, then continued down E. Amherst St. hitting seven more. In the report, officers detailed that Jeader smelled like alcohol and slurred his speech.
“He was very unaware that even hit any cars,” Oliver added.
He lives on the street and told 2 On Your Side that it is not the first time he’s seen speeding down E. Amherst.
“People speeding, the accidents, its never enough police presence here when you need it, cars speed down the wrong way all the time,” Oliver said.
Neither was it the first accident he had witnessed due to speeding on his street.
“Usually they’re speeding down Park Ridge, but recently because of the speed bumps, people are taking advantage of speeding up Amherst. There was just a car accident, maybe two to three weeks prior to this accident,” he added.
There are no speed humps where the crash occurred. Islam said adding them will help curb speeding drivers.
“You see some local states now put speed humps. This is the best thing I believe that will reduce a lot of car accidents, speeding,” said Islam.
Although speed humps may be unpopular, they are effective. According to the Federal Highway Administration, data collected from 26 study sites showed that on roads without speed humps, 14% of drivers drove at least 10 mph above the speed limit. With speed humps, that number dropped to 1% of total traffic.
“I don’t want to say that the speed humps would work, because sometimes it can get very tiresome with them. But at least one or two just to break up the speed in this area would do fine, because there's a lot of kids here,” said Oliver.
The City of Buffalo aims to reduce speeding drivers through the Slow Streets Program which focuses on slowing down traffic with speed humps and other measures.