A family is pleading with local drivers to slow down after their cocker spaniel puppy was struck and killed by a hit-and-run driver on Beach Street on Jan 31.
Six-month-old Goose was being walked near his home when he wriggled free from his leash. He was struck by a black SUV heading toward the Neck. The vehicle did not stop.
In a letter to the editor (see HERE), the pup’s owners, Henry Peabody and Elizabeth Myers, described how the incident is affecting their children.
“Both kids were subjected to a grotesque and graphic experience that will stay with them for the rest of their lives,” they wrote. “It could have been a child.”
They urged drivers to slow down.
“Imagine it was you hitting a six-month-old puppy, or imagine it was your child sobbing while carrying his bloodied and limp body to the door, and you asking friends for a pressure washer so you can clean blood off your front walk,” they wrote.
A review of state Department of Transportation data shows 12 reported crashes on Beach Street since 2016 (not including the puppy), including a fatality in 2017.
“This latest tragedy demands both an immediate response, namely installing temporary traffic calming solutions before beach season,” said Dan Albert, whose Town Meeting article last year created the new Traffic Safety Action Committee in town.
Peabody and Myers had a message for town leaders: “Enough is enough. We watch cars drive outrageously fast on this road, motorcycles up on their rear wheels, cars driving the wrong way, and before this tragedy, drunk kids driving a Jeep in reverse the wrong way and on lawns. It’s not only out-of-town drivers circling the Neck, as surely many would like to assume. It’s everyone. Cars, trucks, luxury brands, EV, it’s everyone.”
They continued, “This street is not a playground for drivers. Quite the opposite, it is a pedestrian playground more so than any road we can think of: walkers, runners, elderly couples, teenagers heading to the beach, kids walking to and from school, dog walkers, childcare givers with strollers. We will be damned if the loss of our family member doesn’t contribute positively in some way. Behavior won’t change on its own.”
Police are investigating. They are asking neighbors if they have any surveillance video from Jan. 31 around 6:50 p.m.
Editor Leigh Blander is an experienced TV, radio and print journalist.
