Fuquay-Varina dad demands stop signs for kid's safety

FUQUAY-VARINA, N.C. (WTVD) -- A Fuquay-Varina dad believes his concerns about the safety of children in his neighborhood are falling on deaf ears.

For months, Vinny Tornone complained to the town that people speed up and down Crimson Oak Lane in the Grays Creek subdivision where he lives. The father of two is demanding more stop signs since children spend much of their time playing outside.

Tornone said about 15 children live between the bottom of a hill and where the road bends past his house. The kids love to play and cross back and forth across the street where drivers come barreling through.

"Once they hit this main area right down here, this is what I call the kill zone," he said pointing to that stretch of the road.

He's been calling on town leaders to add signage that would bring fast drivers to a halt, but the mayor said putting stop signs on a through street would only make matters worse because drivers wouldn't anticipate needing to stop.

"You don't want to give that false sense of security," he said.

Byrne said at Tornone's request, the town has conducted two traffic studies, finding 95 percent of drivers were doing the speed limit or less.

Neighbor Deanna Fonner said even though she's had to flag down drivers for going too fast, it's something that comes with the territory.

"If it is, it's a handful," she said. "Every neighborhood has a handful of people that don't follow the rules."

Byrne said that in the last two years since Grays Creek has been established, there have been no traffic accidents reported or calls for service to the neighborhood.

"You can't just put stop signs up where you want the stop signs," said Byrne.

In the time since town leaders pushed back against Tornone's request at a town hall meeting earlier this month, he installed security cameras on the front of his house and pointed them toward the street.

"Should a child get hit, we're going to hold them liable because right in the minutes it says that the board didn't do anything," he said.