Brake lights of a car headed north on 5th
Street before turning onto Columbia
On Saturday night at about 6:00, as I approached the intersection of 5th & Warren on foot, I watched as a car headed west on Warren turned onto North Fifth headed north in the wrong direction. I yelled "wrong way" at the driver as loud as I could, but to no avail.
The car then pulled over to the right at Prison Alley as if the driver had realized his mistake, but it then resumed its wrong way journey toward Columbia Street. The traffic light at Columbia was green, though that green is only meant for pedestrians trying to get across Columbia Street safely by crossing on the green, not for drivers. (If a driver unknowingly headed in the wrong direction has a clear path toward a working traffic light, there's not much hope for that driver to realize what they have done.) The car then slowly approached the intersection, stopped at the green light as if once again aware of the situation, then took a turn to head east up Columbia.
Once a driver enters any one-way street in Hudson headed in the wrong direction -- after passing the one or two small ONE WAY warning signs at the intersection facing their way -- there are no posted signs or pavement marking telling them to stop or to make them aware they are headed in the wrong direction. Two small one-way signs at the intersection, easily and often missed, and that's it. No back up warnings signs to avoid accidents, no WRONG WAY DO NOT ENTER signs, no arrows painted on the street. Nothing! If any additional warnings are to become reality, they will have to come at the suggestion of Police Commissioner Shane Bower. He's our traffic safety guy (or so I have heard), the one who never attends council meetings and who doesn't have an office at HPD or anywhere else in Hudson, and who may not even live in Hudson. The perfect system, designed for failure, increasingly unsafe streets, and drivers regularly headed the wrong direction on our one-way streets. This is stupid and needs to change.
Wrong way for an entire block
Almost exactly 24 hours prior to witnessing the wrong way driver, and also in the dark, I came as close to being hit by a car as I ever have in my 50-plus years. It really shook me up.
Nearly halfway across State Street at 6th Street on foot, crossing the western portion of the intersection headed north, I realized that a car on State approaching the intersection quickly from the east (to my right) and headed right for me had no intention to stop at the stop sign. When I had first entered the street, the car was not even close to the intersection, so I assumed I had plenty of time to cross, as just about anyone would have. But as I got close to the middle, I realized the car was moving much too fast to properly stop before the intersection. It was run or get run over time, so I instinctively picked up my pace. After my first or second stride, I heard the screech of braking rubber on pavement as the driver had apparently noticed me (or the stop sign). The braking happened just beyond the stop line, about 20 feet from where I was walking/running. If I hadn't noticed that car and it hadn't braked, I have no doubt that I would have been killed instantly.
When I was out of harm's way a second or two later, I noticed that the car had not come to a stop - it just slowed a bit and continued thru the intersection behind me, still in its lane. I turned to my left and screamed "STOP SIGN" twice as I fixed my gaze on the woman driving the car as she sped away. How did I know it was a female if there was darkness all around? Because the light from the screen of the cellphone she held in her right hand illuminated her face.
Vehicle accidents at 6th & State are not uncommon (there was one there as recently as December 7th, though not a bad one). HPD is apparently aware of this. There was a time before the pandemic when at least once a day an HPD officer in an idling patrol vehicle could be seen there waiting to nab drivers failing to stop at one of the stop signs. And they were often successful at catching reckless drivers. Years ago, a cop waiting there told me that the intersection was one of the two worst in the city in terms of stop sign runners (the other being on Glenwood, I believe). These days, it's more common to see a cop waiting at 6th & State just once a week at best. Last week in the daylight, without a police car lying in wait, I watched from nearby as a red pickup truck with a trailer headed east on State never even slowed down for the stop sign at 6th, the driver's foot firmly on the accelerator approaching and going through the intersection, the vehicle traveling at 20 or 25 mph.
Do you remember the friendly local guy from a few years ago known as Birdman, or Birdman Bill? Tall and slender, walked everywhere, usually with an umbrella. Then he wasn't anywhere to be seen. I heard from someone then that Bill had moved to Albany or somewhere north of Hudson because "he didn't feel safe in Hudson anymore." Then a year or so later he was back in Hudson, still walking, still squawking, still as friendly as ever. Then, sadly, while walking along Fairview Avenue, the mirror from a passing giant pickup truck hit Bill in the head and he was taken to Albany Med, or so I remember reading in the Register Star. That had to have been two years ago, and Bill hasn't returned to Hudson. If he survived to walk on his own, I don't blame him for staying away from Hudson and Greenport. It's not getting any better around here for pedestrians and cyclists, that's for sure.
I just read an article on Porcupine Soup about a 21-year-old woman who was recently struck and killed by a passing vehicle as she was walking in the shoulder along 9W just north of Saugerties. The driver never stopped -- another hit and run, another pedestrian killed. Twenty-one years old.
You walk, you risk your life. You drive, you can have the time of your life, even distract yourself with your phone as much as you like while you ignore stop signs and other basic traffic devices meant to keep people from being run over and killed. It's an upside-down world we live in, tied to our vehicles and our phones -- and too often at the same time.
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