Here come those politicians again, looking to take motor vehicles off the beach. After all, a second 4-year-old child has been struck and killed by a vehicle -- not because of speeding, drunkenness or simple carelessness. That would be too easy. These little victims -- a girl in March and a boy on Sunday -- darted in front of a Lincoln Town Car and a Dodge Ram, respectively, and were struck instantly.
So Volusia County Councilman Carl Persis has renewed his charge to take vehicles off the beach. This is the same Carl Persis who wants the county to spend almost a million more on marketing the Ocean Center, county government's albatross.
So Councilman Persis, you say you want to create more car-free zone areas on the 40 miles of beach coastline that already has been reduced to 17 miles. Perhaps if you stretched the areas where cars and trucks could park on the beach there wouldn't be such a congested mess, now would there.
Oh, but that's right. Your colleagues -- some past and present -- took away the core tourist area that had been the mecca of beach driving. You might recall the spot. It's where your cohorts sold out to the developers of Ocean Walk so they could sell the penthouse suites to rich snowbirds to have their own private beach.
You can do all the studies you want. And talk the talk, but until you've done the walk like parents like myself, with little ones in tow with coolers, blankets, umbrellas, sun-tan bottles and towels, you can appreciate the convenience of driving on the beach.
But alas, you have spent so much taxpayer money over the last decade on far more worthwhile projects, than off-beach parking. Take, for example your towering Ocean Center. You know, the one that couldn't even sell out for a Britney Spears concert -- and that was before she had the kids and shaved her head and the economy was great.
And hey, how about the millions wasted on another feel-good project: The News-Journal Center. You know. The one on Beach Street that ruined environmentally-sensitive riverfront land and has inadequate parking. The one that led to 400-plus people losing their jobs and a once-strong metro daily being reduced to now promoting your pet projects.
You see, Mr. Persis, excuse me, Councilman Persis. I grew up in New England. And every summer we drove 45 minutes from Connecticut to Rhode Island's Misquamicut Beach, not exactly the "World's Most Famous Beach," but one known for its "Surf, Sun, and Sand." And seaweed, too.
But at the beach of my childhood, there was parking, plenty of it, adjacent to the beach as opposed to the the towering concrete condos, hotels, timeshares and movie theater complexes you have that make off-street parking an absolute joke.
You take cars off the beach and all you will have left of tourism here is SpeedWeeks, and unless you've been living in a cave, this month's Coke Zero 400 at Daytona International Speedway wasn't exactly a sellout.
If you are so concerned about children being killed on the beach, then stop wasting money on those big community pet projects that no one wants -- how many more playhouses and amphitheaters can you cram down our throats -- and invest in off-beach parking on the same side of the road as the beach. After all, if you do your homework, you will find that far more children have died being struck by motor vehicles in the past decade trying to cross A1A than pre-schoolers breaking away from loved ones, either trying to chase the birds or looking to dance with the in-and-out tide.
My son is now 16. We've been here since he was 3. We learned to go near where the drive-free zones were, and simply parked in the driving area and walked 10 yards to the free-zone with the little one in one hand, and the blankets, towels, coolers, etc. with the free hands.
And think about this Mr. Councilman: Far more children have been struck and killed on A1A and even drowned in the surf than were struck and killed by motor vehicles. To go even further, more children, even younger than four in the past half decade have drowned in their family's swimming pools than have died as a result of motor vehicles on the beach. And while we're at it, many more small children have been bitten by sharks.
When you say ban cars on the beach and use cheap cliches as quoted by your public relations friends at the News-Journal, "To act like we don't have a problem or to act like it's so complicated we can't study the issue is just sticking your head in the sand," is an insult to the parents who have yet to bury their little boy.
Get your head out of the sand and stop funding wasteful projects like the Ocean Center expansion and take the $800,000-plus being asked for market funding on top of it and use it to acquire legitimate off-beach parking that is safe and easily accessible. After all, far more than two children have been killed by vehicles going 3 to 5 times the speed on A1A than allowed on the beach. It's a no-brainer to say none of us wants a child to die at the beach, but put in proper context, the last traffic-related fatality on the beach prior to the two this year was in 1996 -- almost a decade-and-a-half ago.
And let's be real: The two other mishaps on the beach so far this year were the result of sheer stupidity, a motorist driving over the legs of a woman illegally sunbathing in between cars, and a Beach Patrol officer with a spotty driving record carelessly running over an elderly woman tanning in the sun.
There are valid reasons why more and more cars are piling up on the beach as mentioned above: You've restricted the parking far more than it needs to be and with the economy as bad as it is, the beach is one of the few things this county has going for it. If you don't believe me, try driving on the North and South Causeway bridges here on the weekend: Traffic is often backed up to State Road 44 for miles.
If you are going to ban cars on the beach, then perhaps you should consider discussion at Thursday's County Council meeting of restricting boating during holidays. After all, during the last two holidays, a pregnant woman and her father were killed when one boat landed on top of another and a Palatka couple died of carbon monoxide poisoning on the following Fourth of July holiday.
Accidents happen. Perhaps you could win passage of a ban on beach driving in a public vote, but I doubt it. Then again, you and your colleagues are elected and re-elected by the few who bother to get out and vote. And that's how you are able to push your failed concrete projects instead of providing safe parking for beach goers who come to the World's Most Famous Beach for a reason -- because we are the beach and the birthplace of motor sports, again, on the beach.