'Don't Let The 5 Minutes You Save Be The Last 5 Minutes Of Someone's Life'

Share

By By Kevin Reece

Summary

The father of 11-year-old Tia Townsend, who was killed in a Shoreline crosswalk two years ago, continues his fight to keep more kids from suffering the same fate.

Story Published: Nov 23, 2004 at 12:43 PM PDT

Story Updated: Aug 31, 2006 at 1:47 AM PDT

'Don't Let The 5 Minutes You Save Be The Last 5 Minutes Of Someone's Life'
SHORELINE - "The only way I can really describe her is that my life revolved around her."

We first met David Townsend the day his daughter died.

"And the sun set and the sun rose with my daughter."

The sun set on 11-year-old Tia Townsend in a Shoreline crosswalk. Two cars stopped. A third driver didn't see her walking with a friend. The friend survived. The impact threw Tia nearly 20 yards.

"The worst day of my life was that day," David Townsend told us this month. "I left Tia to go to work. Five minutes later my life changed forever."

So what does a single father do now? He plans to honor his daughter forever.

Within weeks, the intersection where Tia died, and where several other pedestrians had been hit in the years before, got changes. Big changes. In-pavement flashing lights at the crosswalk and other warning beacons activated by the push of a button were installed to make drivers slow down.

But it's not just at the intersection of 15th Ave. NE and 170th, but at two other nearby intersections as well.

The work was done by the City of Shoreline and the Washington Traffic Safety Commission, but David Townsend pushed for the state and federal money to get it done.

But he wasn't done.

He wrote letters to congressmen, the Department of Transportation -- even the Office of the Vice President of the United States asking for more improvements.

He turned Tia's name into a cause and a foundation. TIA now stood for Traffic Intersection Awareness.

"Because I'm fighting for your guys' kids," he told us. "I want to make sure they go home at night."

But he is still bitter. It took his daughter's death to get the crosswalk changed. The warning lights above the crosswalk, he offered as an example, cost roughly $18,000.

"I buried my daughter for $23,000. I could have paid for that and had change and still had my daughter."

So two-and-a-half years later, how far will a father's love go?

We plugged in a radar gun and reader-board in a north Seattle school zone and started clocking cars. We relayed the speeds of the cars by radio to David, who waited a quarter mile away. David Townsend, talking to one driver at a time, began telling Tia's story again.

"Were you even aware of it?" he asked driver after driver. "My daughter was killed about two and a half years ago," he told each driver we clocked going 5 to 10 miles an hour over the posted limit. Most responded by telling him they didn't even know they were speeding.

"Well I didn't think school was in session," one driver told him.

So David gave them Tia's photo to remind them.

But why does he argue with individual drivers about just an extra 5 to 10 miles an hour? Traffic studies show that at 20 mph it can take 20 yards for your car to come to a complete stop. Add just another 10 miles an hour to 30 mph and it doubles the distance: up to 40 yards for your car to stop. And at 40 mph it can take up to 60 yards to come to a stop.

"So even if it's 2-miles-an-hour over, it still has an outcome I just don't want to live with or don't want to see," said Townsend. "It reinforces me to come back out here and grab that one person that's willing to listen."

Tia's picture and her story are on a fence near the crosswalk where she died. The city sometimes takes them down. David puts new ones back up. The sun set on his daughter in this Shoreline crosswalk. It won't set on her memory.

"Don't let the five minutes you save getting somewhere be the last five minutes of someone's life. That's the importance of it."

Townsend is also going back to school and hopes to become a traffic planner so he can help redesign dangerous intersections. He has filed a negligence lawsuit against the City of Shoreline claiming they knew the intersection was dangerous but didn't make changes until after Tia's death.

The case goes to trial next April. The city says the accident was the driver's fault. He was given a fine of $490.

For More Information:

www.traffic-intersection-awareness.com
www.keepkidsalivedrive25.org.