A 10-year-old Kensington girl was hit by a car when she was in a crosswalk on Colusa Avenue just north of Colusa Circle in Kensington last Wednesday, police said.
The driver of the car – an elderly woman from Berkeley – apparently did not see the child, said Kensington police Sgt. Keith Barrow.
The girl, a student at Kensington Hilltop Elementary School, was taken by ambulance to a local hospital, he said. Her family Tuesday night said she is appears to have not suffered any serious injuries. She is refraining from athletic activities until her follow-up check-up, they said.
The girl was in the crosswalk at Sante Fe Avenue about 5:06 p.m. when she was struck. Vehicles traveling north on Colusa stopped for her, Barrow said. The car that struck her was going south and, seeing the other cars stopped, slowed down and was not speeding but did not stop, he said.
The collision knocked the girl up onto the car hood and into the windshield, which was "smashed and partly pushed in," Barrow said.
The driver stopped right after the collision, and the girl was able to get up and walk around, Barrow said. The girl complained of back pain and was placed on a back-board before being put into the ambulance, he said.
The driver was not cited at the time, Barrow said. Whether a citation may yet be issued will depend on the outcome of his investigation, which is continuing, he said. There were some conflicting accounts on whether the girl may have been running, he said.
The crosswalk is about four blocks south of another Colusa crosswalk at Fairmount Avenue where a 17-year-old Kensington girl was hit by a car in July. She was taken to a hospital with an ankle injury.
At its meeting last Thursday, the Kensington Hilltop Elementary School PTA voted to investigate installing flags for pedestrians to use at that intersection where the 10-year-old girl was hit and elsewhere at Colusa Circle, said PTA President Romy Douglass.
Leslie Reckler, who heads the PTA's intersection flags projects, said she contacted Contra Costa County officials after the meeting and said it's likely that the county will send a traffic engineer to the intersections to evaluate the possibility. The county oversees streets in Kensington, which is unincorporated.
The PTA, with a county permit, has previously installed crossing flags at about 10 crosswalk intersections in Kensington, mostly around the school and some around Arlington Avenue, Reckler said.
Last week's collision also revived neighborhood alarm about traffic safety along Colusa.
"We are likely to use this incident as a catalyst for improving pedestrian safety on the Circle," said resident Rodney Paul.
Residents say that speeding along Colusa is a continuing hazard for people, as well as cars parked on the street. Another stretch of Colusa further north in El Cerrito has also prompted numerous neighborhood complaints.
Also, I am working with other Colusa Circle residents to encourage the County to make needed changes for pedestrian safety. Email me at rodney.paul510@gmail.com if you would like to join our Colusa Circle Google Group email list and be part of this important discussion.
I'm pleased 'n proud that my neighbor Romy Douglass is stepping up to the plate...she knows whereof she speaks. We live on a terribly busy and dangerous intersection also. And we both post cautionary signs on cars and lawns to warn motorists to be careful. My heart goes out to the young child and her family. It shouldn't take an accident to remind the community to be responsible.
While there are some instances of poor crosswalk placement, blind curves, etc, I think some of the recent incidents are an issue of operator error and not so much an issue of "dangerous" designs. A 5-year study conducted in San Diego found that "...more pedestrian accidents occur in marked crosswalks than unmarked crosswalks by a ratio of approximately 6:1." After comparing the volume of pedestrians using each type of crosswalk, the study concluded "... in terms of usage, two times as many pedestrian accidents occur in marked crosswalks as compared with unmarked crosswalks. Evidence suggests that this poor accident record... is a reflection of the pedestrians' attitude and behavior when using the marked crosswalk..." Basically - when a pedestrian sees the marked crosswalk they ASSUME it is safe and that cars will stop. That is NEVER a good assumption - painting two white lines across the road does not make it any safer!
Crossing only in the crosswalk is important, too. (In my family, we joke that by using the crosswalk we will double the ante on the wrongful death lawsuit and thus make more money for our heirs.) But seriously, Kensington Circle has major visual impairments for both drivers and pedestrians. And its really *not* fair to presume that the person crossing has all of the acuity of the average unimpaired adult (human.) Just ain't so.