With alarming and increasing frequency, your Board is getting calls, emails and other contacts asking for help to slow down their neighbors. Frankly, this is getting scary.
We no longer allow our kids to kayak in our canal anymore. Why? Neighbors are in such a rush to get out or in from the River, they drive dangerously fast around blind corners and only slow down when they get to their own dock. We see this ALL the time from our home. Worse, some boaters not only are driving way above idle speed with wake – they are obviously inebriated.
The situation has gotten so bad that residents have now almost come to blows accompanied with coarse language and calls to Lee County Sheriff.
Similarly, we have received data from Lee DOT on the speed of drivers in T&R. Some 30% of the cars clocked into and out of our community are driving at 35 mph and faster. The State speed limit is 25 in residential neighborhoods. We could easily argue for a lower limit.
I write this letter because in all cases, regardless of where anyone lives in Town and River, there is zero need for speeding – on the water or on our streets.
Canal speeds should be idle speed with NO wake. Driving speeds are by law set at 25 mph – and less where blind corners exist or straightaways with many driveways, etc.
When you exceed these speeds, you are showing complete disrespect for your neighbors, their kids, their property and their safety.
I am asking that in the name of civility, please slow down. We all know our extra speed only gets us home or out shopping or to your dock or the River a few minutes quicker. And no sooner do you get to the River but you are in a manatee zone. Or at a traffic light.
Please, the last thing any of us want is a tragic accident. I fear this most every weekend. I never want to learn of a child or parent or someone walking their dog killed or injured in a T&R canal or street by a neighbor speeding. None of us want to be the cause of that life ending tragedy.
Please – put down that beer, slow down your boat. Take a few seconds more to get home. The drive into the furthest corners of Town and River is only a few seconds more at the legal speed limit.
Let’s all respect our neighbors.