along that intersection that 8-year-old Matteo died<\/a>. <\/p>\nHernandez’s mother had picked Matteo up from school and was turning into their neighborhood when a semi-truck struck, impacting Matteo’s door. <\/p>\n
Hernandez and other neighbors — including city leaders — had been calling for a traffic signal there long before the accident.<\/p>\n
“I fear for my life when I leave and come into our neighborhood,” said Heather Hockett, who said she’s been asking for one for more than 10 years. <\/p>\n
“It’s just… You never know. You’re putting your life in somebody else’s hands. It’s kind of scary,” Hockett said. <\/p>\n
Change may finally be coming; signs stating “signal work ahead” are up. <\/p>\n
Hockett’s daughter, Sophia, is a new driver and said it would give her a sense of protection.<\/p>\n
“Just going just across that, possibly getting hit, still learning how to speed up, stop, and a lot of drivers, you know, they drive very aggressively,” she explained. “That makes me anxious, and just knowing that, getting a stoplight, I feel more protected.”<\/p>\n
That’s exactly what Hernandez is hoping for– a layer of protection for others, even though it comes too late to save her little light. <\/p>\n
“I’m not going to lie. I am grateful that they are actually doing something,” Hernandez said. <\/p>\n
But although TxDOT says work is scheduled to begin next week, she and neighbors say they aren’t pulling the plug on this fight, just yet. <\/p>\n
“Like for me, this is going to be a constant battle until I see a traffic light installed and functioning,” she said.<\/p>\n
TxDOT anticipates that the work could take up to 45 days before testing begins.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There’s an intersection along Texas 114 and Alliance Boulevard in Rhome that induces anxiety and trauma for Maria…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":235751,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,104,103,13468],"class_list":{"0":"post-235750","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas","8":"tag-dallas","9":"tag-dallas-headlines","10":"tag-dallas-news","11":"tag-wise-county"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235750"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235750\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/235751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}