RELATED: Editorial
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
A BANDIANA mother hopes the face of her little boy will prompt speeding drivers to slow down on her busy street.
Belinda Dobson has put up a sign on the street with a picture of her son with the words, “Slow down. This is the little boy you won’t have time to brake for at 80kph”.
Her son, Lennon, 2, can run from the bottom to top of his driveway in four seconds.
Mrs Dobson fears that’s all the time it would it would take for him to be hit by a car on Kenneth Watson Drive, where the Dobsons live.
Drivers often exceed the 50km/h speed limit on the road.
Mrs Dobson’s sign is an effort to be pro-active about the issue and make motorists think twice.
“I was thinking about the idea of putting a sign up about a month ago and the other day we were outside watching the mailman come,” she said.
“Lennon got excited and ran up to get the letter.
“The mailman actually did a double take like — ‘wow, there’s a little kid there’.
“And I thought that made him stop and think, ‘maybe it’s not just me on the road’, maybe the sign might do the same thing.”
The Dobsons have lived in the Bandiana estate for eight years.
Their house is on the only convenient road in and out of an area where there are about 200 houses.
Other families along the street face the same dangers as Lennon.
They have said Mrs Dobson’s fear was real and have commended her for putting up the sign.
The family has written to the Wodonga Council asking it to build a speed hump but, for now, Mrs Dobson said her sign would have to do.
“I would rather them see my kid’s picture because he’s alive and they can keep him alive, rather than see it in the news because they hit him with their car.”
“If something happened, it wouldn’t just ruin our lives.
“It would ruin the driver’s life as well.”