By Clayton Margeson
This week, the Chapel Hill Town Council finally voted for a new measure that will hopefully lessen the number of student hit-and-run accidents on campus. After a tally of how many people have been hit by speeding vehicles, and cross checking the location of these accidents, they came to the conclusion that the most students have been injured by cars speeding through the center of campus known colloquially as “The Pit.” To reduce the danger, they approved a Public Works Department project to place a traffic signal in the Pit by the end of April.
Spokeswoman Nancy Wiljurs had this to say: “We just can’t risk more student injuries in such a high-traffic area. Students cross through the Pit all the time without any thought to their safety, and now we have a way to prevent these accidents from occurring again. We are also adding traffic calming devices such as speed humps and raised crosswalks, which should help drivers to slow down. DPS will also be patrolling early in the morning to make sure no students are jaywalking.”
DPS officer Wiley O’Henry has been with the force for seven years, and, according to him, the measure could not have come any sooner. “I’ve been pushing for something like this since 2002, but nobody ever wanted to spend the money. It happens so much, and people think that if they ignore the problem it’ll just go away. Well, it’s about time those bureaucratic fat cats got off their bums and got something done to keep our students safe. I just hope we can move the jaywalking fine to two hundred bucks, like I wanted.”
Eileen Richards, Treasurer of the Pedestrian Rights Activist Group (PRAG) issued a statement saying, "Many argue that the system is pretty safe as it is, since no one has ever been killed or mortally wounded along that walkway. These people argue that such statistics point towards deliberate care on the part UNC pedestrians to be mindful of the danger that area poses. However, it is the PRAG's position that the conspicuous lack of deaths is much more indicative of the profound ineptitude of the drivers than anything else."
This viewpoint seems common among campus students, but commuters are worried that this will considerably slow traffic to a standstill. Chapel Hill resident Joseph Fent was none too pleased by this new development. “Listen, I have to get to work every morning by six. I don’t have time to take all these out of the way roads like Raleigh and Cameron. If they put up this traffic light, next thing you know cars will be backed up all the way to 40, and we’ll have to start driving straight through the graveyard again.”