Hit-and-run driver damages Superior Street property

SANDPOINT — More than property value could have been lost in the hit-and-run accident that occurred early Thursday morning.

According to neighborhood residents, a red vehicle heading down Superior crashed through a railroad tie fence and into a shed on residential property. Had the storage structure not been there, the car would have hit a bedroom where a woman and her infant child slept.

“The woman and her baby stayed safe,” said Lou Dillon, who owns property along the street. “Unfortunately, the shed that’s been there since 1908 wasn’t so lucky.”

The hit-and-run driver also damaged a vehicle parked along the street. Residents speculate that the perpetrator backed out of the shed and into the car, seriously damaging it and pushing it onto the curb. 

Sifting through the wreckage during the day, Dillon and her husband found portions of a taillight and blinker. An auto mechanic told them that the parts either broke off of a Ford Ranger or the rarer Mazda B2200.      

Dillon says this is the third accident to occur on the street in a nine month period. Prior to Thursday’s accident, Dillon’s son, who rents the Superior house from his parents, reported a hit-and-run collision with his vehicle. A neighbor’s car was also damaged last winter.

Residents say that the primary cause of the accidents are a lack of stop signs along the intersections. Several years ago, they were replaced with yield signs after people complained that it was difficult to stop on the hilly street during winter time.

“Everybody runs that stop sign and everybody drives too fast,” said homeowner Gene Dillon, noting most of the traffic comes straight off the Long Bridge. “It’s got to stop. Someone is going to get hurt.”

Dillon plans to request that the city reinstate the stop signs along Superior’s intersections.

“I’ve had neighbors tell me that they’re all for getting stop signs on the street,” she said. “This is getting ridiculous.”