Today, a raccoon died on Colonial Terrace just before the turn onto 19th Street. It had been hit by a car that left it to gasp in pain and ignoble disposal.

I guess few will care much about that but this is what I thought about that dead raccoon.

Our new neighbors in the Colonial Terrace condos seem to have a problem. Their fast BMWs want to show their paces, but that just gets traffic tickets elsewhere. So instead, the small distance between the condo parking and 19th to Ode Street becomes a place to show how well that car can corner, how fast its acceleration -- and how thoughtless its driver.

This driver was no more equipped to stop for a child or a woman with a baby carriage or an elderly neighbor than he was to avoid a raccoon. In his mind, perhaps, that block was the starting block of a race, and wasn't he fast off the block.

This kind of speeding -- so pointless for a distance of less than 2 blocks -- has been a problem in the past but has increased now with the condo development.

A speed bump would discourage it and perhaps some kind of traffic monitor strip could record just how fast some of those cars are accelerating as they round the bend.