Video: SUV plows into Albuquerque homeowner’s wall

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – A southwest Albuquerque family has had to replace their yard’s wall not once, not twice, but three times, thanks to reckless drivers plowing through a stop sign in their neighborhood.

“He was going about probably 50 miles an hour I’d say,” said Jerome Sutherland, the homeowner. 

Video from last week shows the most recent incident, where an SUV hit the wall, and then tried to back up, out of the damage.

“If it would’ve been on any other week, there would’ve been kids coming through here,” Sutherland pointed out. 

Including his daughter, walking home from elementary school.

“She actually jumps the fence right here where the car hit,” he said. 

Sutherland caught a car running into a different part of the wall in February, and a couple of years ago, another car. But somehow, he has always been the one to pay the price.

“I’m going to have to pay for this again, $1,200,” he said. “Hurts when I have to pay out of my pocket every time someone just barrels through my fence. They go pretty fast you can hear their engines revving.”

Last week was the last straw. His wife is submitting a request for traffic calming through the city’s Neighborhood Traffic Management Program. The program addresses speeding and other traffic issues, sometimes with physical tools like speed bumps, other times with radar speed signs and targeted enforcement. 

Sutherland needs seven other neighbors to sign for the application. For now, he only has a word for the next person who disregards the intersection.

“If you can’t handle it I guess don’t punch it,” said Sutherland.

Anyone can submit a request for traffic calming here.