The Dog Days of August are upon us and air conditioners are running 24 hours a day! There are also not many more weeks until the new school year begins. To this end, it has been decided to hold a community ‘End of Summer Swim Party’ to put a cooling splash on all this heat. This wet gala will be brimming with pizzas, games, prizes and a giant-screen movie event, all poolside – happening the Saturday evening (8/22) before Klein ISD classes commence. Check out all the fun details (and a few swim rules) further inside this newsletter.
On a more serious note, we pick up a continuing theme from last month’s message regarding continuing concerns about overall traffic safety on our streets. At the July HOA meeting several homeowners expressed their concerns about local traffic conditions and, as well, raised quite a few questions as to what could be done. Later in that meeting, Lawrence McKinney, VP of Safety, gave an extensive review of new (and of renewed) efforts to not only elevate resident driver awareness but to also more effectively communicate resident’s concerns to our patrolling officers.
Nevertheless, the statistics are undeniable – most accidents take place within a short distance of home. You could add to this fact that most people believe ‘their home is their castle’ And, by extension, could we not also say that their surrounding neighborhood is ‘their manor?’ It is, at any rate, their ‘comfort zone.’ But this excess of familiarity of surroundings often breeds carelessness and unwatchfulness. There is often a lack of attention to the ordinary details – an accident just waiting to happen.
Try out this little mental familiarity test the next time you “arrive” at the corner grocery or at the school parking lot: ask yourself if you can honestly remember interacting with all of those two dozen stop sign intersections that you needed to traverse to your final destination. Or did you just “suddenly” arrive?
That is a familiarity that can (and will) breed carelessness; it happens NEAREST to home, your community. Traffic safety is an active mentally-engaged process; familiarity is most often not that.
Phil Blagg
MNW Board President
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