Fifteen-year-old Mariana Martinez was on her usual morning commute to school on her electric scooter when she says she was hit by a car in a crosswalk in the Bedford area.
“It was an accident, none of us wanted to be there, really,” she said. “I mean, I always look to the side so that no one’s coming. Also in that part there’s a bump to make you slow down if you’re riding a bike or something.”
She was hit while crossing Doyle Street at the intersection of Hammonds Plains Road.
Martinez sustained bruising on her leg and is experiencing stiffness in her back and neck. Her mother says she’s thankful it wasn’t much worse.
“This piece of scooter that is made of metal could have been Mariana’s bones,” said Jazmin Caloca, Martinez’s mother. “We all need to be patient. Slow down. We all have families.”
Martinez and her family are new to the area and are very shaken by the incident. “I guess it’s just sad that I don’t feel comfortable,” the teenager said.
Chelsea Franklin has lived in the area for five years. She drove by shortly after the accident and said she wasn’t surprised.
“I’ve definitely been stopped here, or stopped and all of a sudden a pedestrian comes up and it’s a knee-jerk reaction stopping for them,” she said.
Fellow resident Elizabeth Millen agreed.
“There’s a lot of people going out and going either right or left and there’s a lot of pedestrians,” she said. “People walking dogs, people jogging. So there’s a lot going on, you really have to be careful.”
Some local residents say they would like to see a set of lights installed at the intersection.