On Sunday, March 21, Gina Loveday of Saratoga was struck by a car and killed while walking her dog on Highway 9 in Saratoga. On Feb. 21, Jim Dein was hit and killed while riding his bicycle on Highway 9 in Monte Sereno.

Highway 9 is a residential street and I live on it. These two recent deaths are among the many incidents that we see happening weekly in front of our homes. My five children and many other children and adults who live on Highway 9 place our lives in other drivers' hands every time we venture out of our driveways, whether on foot, by bike or in a car.

Highway 9 is a California Scenic Highway that is used by walkers, runners and bicyclists every day. The amount of foot and bicycle traffic on the highway is incredible. Yet there is no safe place on the sides of Highway 9 for these people. Lanes go from one to two and back down to one lane, and posted speed limits are up to 50 mph.

The sides of the roads where people walk and cycle have eroded, are blocked by utility poles and cables in holes sticking out of the ground, are covered with bushes and debris and go from wide areas down to 12-inch spaces for those who try to walk or cycle on both sides of the highway. The only area really safe to be on is the trail area that has been installed in the last section of Highway 9 into Saratoga.

Caltrans has responsibility for this highway. Now is the time for the town of Los Gatos and the cities of Monte Sereno and Saratoga to take some responsibility and work with Caltrans to make this highway safer for us all. A master plan needs to be developed now. It will not get any cheaper to do in the future.

Please, call or email your mayor, state Assemblyman Joseph Simitian (www.assembly.ca.gov/Simitian) and Senator Bruce McPherson (www.senate.
ca.gov/McPherson) and Caltrans (http://
www.dot.ca.gov/dist4/). Let's keep the pressure on them until they come up with a plan before you, I, our children or a loved one is the next to be killed on this unsafe road.

JoAnne Peth

Saratoga­Los Gatos Road, Monte Sereno

Wearing armbands
on April Fools Day

It's not just that I disagree with the current administration. I'm outraged. And I'm downright embarrassed to talk to anyone from another country. I'm embarrassed to have a president so arrogant, so dishonest, so hawkish, that in three years he has nearly destroyed any good relations we had before he took office, and worsened those that were already bad.

I find myself apologizing to my foreign friends both in this country and abroad while trying vainly to explain the sheer idiocy and illogic of the current administration's policies.

So this April 1, April Fools Day, I am joining tens of thousands of others who are wearing brown armbands or ribbons to demonstrate our dissidence.

Tracy McCullough

Nestorita Way (S.J.)