HOUSTON — Residents in north Houston are concerned about the safety of their streets after a child was killed last weekend.
They said broken street lights are to blame for the dangerous driving conditions at night.
For about a mile and a half along North Shepherd between 43rd Street/Crosstimbers Road and the North Freeway, street lights have been out on one side of the road for a while.
"I take this route every morning in the dark," Jim Davis said.
Davis said the lights have been out for a few months. He's driven the road on his commute home from work around 4 a.m. for 10 years.
He said he tried to get them fixed over a month ago.
"It's just very frustrating because I've reached out to the people who I thought were responsible for the light and got no results," Davis said.
Then, tragedy struck on Saturday night. Police said a boy, believed to be 11, was struck and killed by a Dodge Charger along North Shepherd at Tidwell. It happened in the dark -- around 8:30 p.m. Police said the boy wasn't in a crosswalk when the Charger drove through a green light and hit him. The driver stayed at the scene and cooperated with investigators.
"I'm not saying that the lights out contributed to this situation on Saturday, but if it had been lit, maybe this driver would have seen this person. I don't know," he said.
After months of waiting for action, Davis said something needs to be done -- not just for pedestrians, but for drivers, too.
"I hope whoever is responsible for these lights, whether it be CenterPoint or the City of Houston, gets out there and fixes these lights, they've been out way too long," Davis said.
CenterPoint said the City of Houston might own the lights and Houston Public Works said it was looking to see if they're responsible for maintaining the lights. They said CenterPoint provides the power to street lights, and if they're out, they need to restore the power to get them working again.