DALLAS — A Lake Highlands neighbor has started a petition to ask the City of Dallas for road improvements and increased traffic enforcement after a deadly high-speed crash near a middle school.
"Unfortunately, I have kind of a front row seat to some of the driving that happens here," said Megan DuBose, who launched a Change.org petition days after the crash that killed two people in a McLaren sports car traveling southbound on Abrams Road.
The car was traveling fast enough to split in two when it hit a median Live Oak tree broadside. The front half of the vehicle wedged against the tree and the back half came to rest in the middle of the northbound lanes.
Four days after the crash, a memorial of candles, flowers and balloons marks the spot where Cristobal Flores-Espino, 29, and his passenger Robert Leroy Rocha, 31, died. A second vehicle involved in the crash also hit another tree in the median. Dallas Fire-Rescue tells WFAA that the driver survived.
Traffic investigators still have not revealed just how fast the McLaren sports car was traveling. But the fatal accident was a final straw for DuBose who lives less than a mile from the crash site. Her petition drive, as of this writing with more than 750 signatures, asks the city of Dallas to address the problems with the six-lane stretch of Abrams: asking for a comprehensive traffic study, more police presence, and changes in the road that would slow traffic down.
"It was so devastating and the fact that it happened right at the dismissal bell for the elementary school kids at two of the local schools was too much for me," DuBose said.
Neighbors suggest a major dip in the southbound lanes of Abrams Road near Whitehurst Drive could have been a factor in the sports car losing control at a high rate of speed. But neighbors have also complained about high speeds, too many accidents, and too many red light runners in the area.
"I get passed by people going over 60 miles an hour sometimes during the school zone time frame, which kind of blows my mind," added DuBose.
The family of Robert Rocha tells WFAA they are waiting for information from traffic investigators as well. They say they did not know Flores-Espino or why their son was in the car with him.