Residents of a Northeast Philadelphia condominium community are demanding stronger traffic enforcement after a car crashed into a home along Woodhaven Road.<\/p>\n
It’s an incident neighbors say reflects an ongoing and dangerous pattern.<\/p>\n
Community members say cars, trucks and even tractor-trailers routinely come off Route 63 and fail to slow down as they enter the residential area near the North Point Condominiums.<\/p>\n
“The whole house shook and we just heard boom. I come down the stairs and there’s a gentleman in my living room, dining room in his car,” said Laura Hammond.<\/p>\n
Security video from January 7 shows a car slamming through a fence, past the community pool, and into Laura Hammond’s house. Video from Chopper 6 that night showed a large emergency response.<\/p>\n
Hammond said the damage was devastating.<\/p>\n
“My house is just gone,” she said.<\/p>\n
Neighbors say the crash was not an isolated incident. They describe a regular threat of speeding vehicles barreling off Route 63 and into their neighborhood, despite a 25 mph speed limit and signs warning drivers to yield and reduce speed ahead.<\/p>\n
Beyond safety concerns, the condominium association vice president says the reckless driving is also taking a financial toll.<\/p>\n
“We are going to bear the financial burden of this catastrophic insurance claim for the next five years,” said Kathryn Eiler.<\/p>\n
“We can’t get any help; we need help. We can’t continue to do it. We are bearing the brunt of it,” Eiler added.<\/p>\n
On Thursday night, residents brought their concerns to the Captain’s Town Hall at the 8th Police District. After hearing from the community, Capt. Nicholas DeBlasis said he would look into shifting the district’s aggressive driving detail to the Woodhaven Road area.<\/p>\n
“I’m glad I’m hearing their voices. I’m glad they feel comfortable that they can come to me as captain of the 8th District to help with their problems,” DeBlasis said.<\/p>\n
Residents welcomed the captain’s support, noting they have been pushing for changes for years, contacting local and state leaders and agencies.<\/p>\n
“We just want that closed off. It shouldn’t be allowed in a residential area,” Hammond said.<\/p>\n
Action News reached out to the city’s Streets Department and PennDOT and is awaiting responses.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Residents of a Northeast Philadelphia condominium community are demanding stronger traffic enforcement after a car crashed into a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":124972,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[58515,2327,69,71,70,28875,58516],"class_list":["post-124971","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-laura-hammond","tag-northeast-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-traffic-enforcement","tag-woodhaven-road"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124971\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}