What if it were your kids in the road?

To the editor: As I sat down Friday morning with my cup of coffee and read page 5 of the Times Herald-Record, I could not believe the story about man from Huguenot who recently pleaded guilty to running over a 10-year old girl with his pickup truck, going home and leaving her in the road to die. I thought to myself, “What an animal! A person cannot be this heartless.” Then this afternoon, I took my daughter for ice cream after her soccer game. I was driving on Route 17A headed toward Bellvale Creamery, when I noticed two kids and a large golden retriever trying to cross the street from Iron Forge to Cascade Roads. With autumn upon us, that stretch of road is extremely busy and congested. I stopped my car to let these pedestrians, these kids, cross the road, safely. Let me share with you what happened next. A minivan and a car, who were traveling in back of my car, pressed down on their horns, presented me with a single-finger salute and passed illegally over the double yellow line on the left coming within inches of running the kids down. They didn’t even hesitate - just pressed down hard on their accelerators and off they went! Thank God, the kids made it to the other side of the road. Apple pickers from New Jersey, you are probably thinking? Leaf-peepers? Teenagers? Tourists? Wrong. These two vehicles had New York plates, one had a Warwick Wildcats sticker on the back of the van. The car a sign supporting one of the local horse-back riding institutions. I saw the drivers, they were middle-aged adults. I went after the cars because I really wanted to catch up to these drivers and ask them: “What are you thinking? Where are you going in such a hurry that it is worth possibly running down two kids ... like road kill?” I never caught up to the drivers; they were too fast and in too much of a hurry. But If they are reading this I want to ask: Do you have children? Because if you do, and someday they want to attempt something as “horrific” and “inconvenient” as crossing the street, you better hope and pray that they run into a compassionate driver such as myself. Because if your children encounter a driver like you ... they won’t make it to the other side of the road. Still shaking, Darlene Brozowski Warwick