Fatal Wesbtury street racing crash adds to fears of speeding drivers
Black skid marks veer from the road sharply left onto a muddy esplanade, where they end at the trunk of a charred tree with missing bark in a residential area that has seen its share of deadly racing accidents.
The scorched, gray logo of a Honda Civic is among the few remains of a fiery crash in the Westbury neighborhood, where a driver died in a suspected racing incident Tuesday night. The impact split the vehicle in half all the way through to the back bumper in what one police officer described as the “worst vehicle damage” he’d seen in a long time.
As of Thursday, police were unable to provide any additional details, including the man’s identity. Neighbors rushed to the wreck in the 11200 block of Hillcroft Avenue, just north of West Bellfort, many of them attempting to extinguish the fire. One man grabbed a hose from his home and sprayed the car until firefighters arrived, a neighbor said.
At least nine people have died in speeding incidents in the Westbury area since 2014. Despite low posted speed limits, the neighborhood’s trademark trees are often the only barrier that stops vehicles barreling through the 1,800-acre neighborhood of more than 5,000 homes.
“You would be hard-pressed to find people doing under 35 mph,” despite speed limit signs displaying 30- and 35-mph
zones, said Becky Edmondson, co-president of the Westbury Super Neighborhood and former president of the civic club.
With 6 or 7 miles of major thoroughfares running through Westbury, speeding is a constant problem, said Cindy Chapman, current civic club president, a group that has partnered with two local law enforcement agencies to curtail speeding, including contracts with Harris County Precinct 5 Constable deputies to patrol the streets, and monthly meetings with police officers to address neighborhood issues.
Officers are responsive, and the community now has at least two speed indicator trailers that rotate around the area, Edmondson said. It is looking into getting solar-powered speed indicators added along other roads, she said.
A speeding car pummeling into a home and killing someone is a constant worry, Edmondson said.
“Luckily, that hasn’t happened,” she said. “There have had homes that have had cars hit them, but no one was injured in those.”
Three years ago, a man died when he lost control of his vehicle on Hillcroft Avenue at Ludington and smashed into a tree in a neighbor’s yard. The year before that near the same intersection, a young couple died when they hit a tree after losing control of their car. And in 2014, two young men died at West Bellfort and Mullins when they hit a tree going 80 mph, according to records kept by the Westbury Houston neighborhood.
The neighborhood is known for its green spaces and the large trees that adorn every home, Chapman
said, noting an original deed restriction in Westbury that required homeowners to plant trees in their front yards.
The trees have likely saved many homes, she said.
A large oak tree with double branches swirling in opposite directions is what ultimately stopped the blue Honda Civic on Hillcroft on Tuesday night.
Don Cullum, 58, said he heard the crash as he was having dinner with his family. He stepped outside and saw the giant oak engulfed in flames four houses down.
“No one got out of the car,” Cullum said. “The flames were just too intense. I can’t even imagine how someone would survive that kind of impact.”
Police believe a second
“The flames were just too intense. I can’t even imagine how someone would survive that kind of impact.”
Don Collum, who heard the crash while eating dinner with his family
car may have been involved in the incident, and depending on how the investigation turns out, that driver may face charges as well, said Sean Teare, of the Harris County District Attorney’s Office.
It’s not very common that someone dies in a racing incident, said Houston Police Commander Kenneth Campbell, who oversees traffic enforcement. “That’s not to say that it doesn’t happen.”
Speeding is a contributing factor in many trafficrelated deaths, he said.
Westbury has not specifically seen an abnormal amount of speeding incidents compared with other neighborhoods around Houston, but Hillcroft, as well as other major thoroughfares in the area have, Campbell said.
HPD would not disclose specific locations where they have seen a rise in speeding incidents as to not compromise “proactive traffic enforcement operations,” a spokesman said.
In Westbury, crashes where speed was listed as a factor dropped from 2015, when 15 wrecks happened, to nine or 10 annually in 2016, 2017 and 2018, according to data compiled by the Texas Department of Transportation. Other nearby neighborhoods and Houston as a whole also saw declines — with the city’s speed-related crashes falling from 807 in 2015 to 765 last year.
Hillcroft, however, has an increasing number of speed-related wrecks from Westheimer to U.S. 90 Alternate, also called South Main, most clustered in the area around Interstate 69. Since 2010, the street has been the location of 32 crashes where speed — either an unsafe speed for conditions or one noticeably exceeding the speed limits — was cited by police as a factor. Fourteen of the crashes happened before 2016, while the majority have been in the past four years. With Tuesday’s crash, 2019 will have seven speed-related crashes, tying 2016 for the worst year on record.
Five of the speed-related crashes since 2012 happened along Hillcroft south of Beechnut.
Bellfort also poses problems when it comes to wrecks involving excessive speed. Since 2010, police have responded to 14 speed-related crashes between Chimney Rock and Fondren, including one fatality wreck in 2014. Five speed-related crashes happened on Sandpiper Drive, a mostly residential street between Fondren and Hillcroft that’s a common shortcut for some drivers.
While there is some correlation between illegal street racing and fatalities, it’s a low percentage of traffic incidents, Campbell said, adding that Houston police have seen “an influx of reckless driving incidents” and even illegal street racing since the summer.
In January, police arrested nine members of a car club when they shut down traffic along Interstate 45 near the “Be Someone” sign. And just last month, Police Chief Art Acevedo arrested the driver of a white Mercedes who was racing and going more than 110 mph in downtown.
The driver was charged with reckless driving instead of the separate charge of racing, according to the Houston Police Department. Both are misdemeanor offenses.
Chapman commended her neighbors who jumped into action to try to save the driver of the Civic in Tuesday’s crash, and she really feels for his family.
“My heart — I feel so sorry for them,” she said.