Business owner showcases Moreland Avenue perils and calls for safety measures
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Patrice Hull, owner of Stuff We Wanna Say, uses social media to comment on drivers and pedestrians navigating Moreland Avenue in Little 5 Points. Photo: Kristal Dixon/Axios
We all know the urge to call someone out when they're acting out of pocket — but we also know that there's a time and place.
- Patrice Hull, who owns a business in Little 5 Points called Stuff We Wanna Say, is leaning into her company name by speaking candidly on social media about reckless driving on or near Moreland Avenue — and people crossing the roadway without regard for traffic signals.
Why it matters: Hull's social media posts highlight how dangerous the four-lane state highway can be to motorists and pedestrians.
- "I see near-misses all the time," she said, referring to when she's watching the action from her storefront window.
The latest: She's uploaded a few of those near-misses recorded by her security cameras on her 417 Moreland Avenue Instagram page, and some of those clips have gone viral.
- One post features a Waymo vehicle that tried to continue on a road that was closed, only to stop when it detected an Atlanta police officer in front of the car (it eventually turned around).
- Other videos show people dancing to the music she plays outside her store, one person sitting atop a Jeep as it travels along Moreland, and several people attempting to cross the road during a green light.
What they're saying: While she showcases Little 5 Points' eccentricity, highlights the area's other businesses and promotes her shop, Hull believes that Moreland Avenue is one of the city's busiest and most dangerous streets.
- "It's also very mind-boggling that people want to just hop across the street like this a game of Frogger and they think, 'Oh, nobody's going to hit me,'" she told Axios.
- Hull said she wishes there were efforts to slow vehicular traffic to make the roadway safer for pedestrians.
- One idea she has is for the city to paint the crosswalks a bold color to signal to motorists that the intersection in front of her store is where a lot of pedestrians will cross the street.
Context: Little 5 business owners and residents have been calling for ways to make the state highway safer for drivers and pedestrians. It is managed by the Georgia Department of Transportation.
- Those calls intensified this year after a driver fleeing a state trooper crashed into a vehicle at the Moreland-McLendon avenue intersection, killing 19-year-old Cooper Schoenke.
- That collision put the Georgia State Patrol's pursuit policy under renewed scrutiny, and the City Council passed a resolution calling for more transparency and restrictions around pursuits initiated by the state agency in Atlanta.
The bottom line: Hull said she hopes people will continue to support the small businesses in Little 5 Points, but there has to be some mechanisms in place to protect pedestrians.
- "I think something should be done to make it look like, 'OK it's [a] neighborhood. Slow down,'" she said.