Siga-me

Roberto Henry Ebelt

In 2011, I wrote an article, published in Jornal do Comércio on 14th of February in which
I mentioned the following event, which is not fictional:

Two weeks ago, my wife was run over by a motorcycle. Happily, the bad conductor, as I noticed when I got at the site of the accident, a couple of minutes later, had made a forbidden U turn, which impeded my wife to see him because she was looking in the right direction and he came from the wrong direction. As he had just made a U-turn, he was going at a low speed, which caused, in my wife, only a minor fracture in her spinal column (backbone). Now she will have to spend the rest of the summer wearing an uncomfortable plastic vest (in Portuguese they call it COLETE) in order to avoid sequels.

If he had hit her at a higher speed, she would certainly not be able to walk anymore, according to the doctor who took care of her, at our excellent HPS. I must also say that the soldiers, a man and a woman, from Brigada Militar, who attended to her, were extremely helpful, efficient, and polite.

As the accident took place almost at seven o'clock in the evening, and, despite the fact that the accident took place on Cristóvão Colombo Avenue, in front of Zaffari, it was impossible to find one single member (or deputy) of EPTC. There were several members of Brigada Militar, but not even one from EPTC.

Now, I am trying hard to reason with my own brain, in order to avoid saying something offensive to EPTC, as most everybody would, such as "Where were the Blue Ones?" or "The Blue Ones must have been giving tickets (or fines) to the cars not correctly parked" or "At this time, probably the Blue Ones have already reached their daily quota of fines (to fine = multar) and gone home.

Nevertheless, I would certainly like to know where the Blue Ones were at the moment of the accident, because during working hours you can find dozens of them on Cristóvão Colombo Avenue, and, at least two of them in front of Zaffari, always, except on holidays, Sundays and Saturday afternoons. I believe the President of EPTC, Mr. Cappellari, must have an explanation for my question and for the absolute carelessness of EPTC regarding that extremely dangerous block, especially for pedestrians. I have already addressed him in an article in this column sometime ago, but I never got a single word from EPTC. Most important than that, I have been trying to get a solution for the traffic problems that occur in the block between Hoffmann Street and 7 de Abril Street, since the term of Mayor Collares, in the last century, in vain. I have seen many neighbors die in accidents in that damned block since then.

That was one year ago. Since then I have got in touch with someone at EPTC, named Simone, at least a dozen of times, by e-mail. When I finally got from her a promise that the subject would be appreciated by a traffic authority, I learned the person who would be in charge of this subject had been promoted to a higher position at Companhia Carris.

I feel like Don Quixote fighting against windmills when I talk to the people of EPTC. Something must be done at the segment on Cristóvão Colombo Avenue, which goes from Colégio Batista to 7 de Abril Street.

The unacceptable fact is that EPT did something: they painted a zebra cross in front of Zaffari, in the middle of the block, a place where no driver expects to find one. In the corner of Hoffmann Street and Cristóvão Colombo Avenue, where there should be a traffic light or, at least, a zebra cross they haven’t done anything at all.

Mind my words, someone, in the near future will be run over by a careless driver on that cross walk, because drivers simply do not see it, and pedestrians feel safe when they cross a street on a zebra cross (England) or crosswalk (USA). The correct place for such crosswalk would be in the intersection of Cristóvão Colombo Ave. and Hoffmann Street, and not in front of Zaffari.

Please, Mr. Cappellari, would mind taking a look at this very serious problem? Ms Vanessa, could you help the community of Floresta?
Thanks for your attention.

Have a nice weekend, drive carefully, don’t use your cell phone while driving, pay attention while crossing a street, don’t drink and drive, don’t text behind the wheel, and don’t trust, as a pedestrian, on crosswalks located in unexpected places because drivers simply do not expect you to be there.