DOVER, DE- For years, speeding has been a growing concern for neighbors on East Loockerman Street in Dover, who say drivers often use the road as a shortcut and ignore the speed limit. Now, residents are proposing their own solution to make the street safer, but city leaders have a different approach in mind.
The speed limit on East Loockerman Street is 25 miles per hour, but residents say it rarely feels that way.
David Suiters, a long-time neighbor, said drivers often disregard the posted speed limit—an issue he has noticed since first moving in.
"There have been many times I've tried to pull out of my driveway, as well as my family coming here to visit, and cars just disregard us. They don't believe in 25 on these roads. And basically, it's a shortcut to Route One. And it's just out of control."
The speeding isn't just a nuisance, neighbors say — it has caused real damage to their property.
Mary Bell, a mother of seven who has lived on East Loockerman Street for years, said the speeding poses a real danger to her and her family.
"We've had five cars hit. Three of them were technically totaled by the insurance. Two, we were able to salvage."
With the long-standing problem reaching a tipping point, neighbors are now pushing for a solution they believe will finally slow drivers: closing the neighborhood entrance from the Burger King side of the street.
Suiters said he feels this is the only way to put an end to the dangerous speeding.
"By shutting the entrance down where Burger King is to where it's emergency vehicles only, that's going to resolve the problem."
Bell agrees, saying closing off the neighborhood to through traffic would make the area safer and provide the protection residents need.
"It's a short street. There are 30 to 36 houses on the street. I don't see the problem in just closing it and keeping all of the families here safe."
Neighbors say they have spent months contacting city officials and attending meetings since July, growing increasingly frustrated by the city’s lack of action and response.
However, earlier this week, Suiters said the city finally emailed him back, rejecting their proposal to close off the entrance. The email read: "Our team has reviewed all the information and, for full transparency, we are not recommending that the road be closed. This is because the petition does not have a majority of property owners' signatures, and the data does not support a road closure."
However, Suiters said neighbors collected a majority of the signatures on a petition earlier this year, as the city requested, and that the city officials' response makes no sense.
"They said we didn't have a majority. We have 30-some houses on our street, and we got 22 of them."
City Manager Dave Hugg said while neighbors may perceive heavy speeding, the data does not support the claim.
"While people may believe drivers are speeding up and down the road, the actual data does not support that."
The data he referenced comes from a March 2025 Dover Police traffic study of East Loockerman Street, which recorded 706 vehicles. The study found an average speed of 24 miles per hour with only eight enforceable violations — about one percent.
Despite the numbers, Bell said she feels the data does not reflect what actually happens.
"I understand where the data didn't show anything. The road study was done closer to where people enter. They gain speed and get it right back here, where this sign is. We've seen people going as fast as 50 miles an hour just after work."
Hugg said closing the road could create bigger safety concerns.
"It creates a major issue for fire trucks, police cars, and ambulances who now have to go out, down and around and come back."
Instead, Hugg said the city plans to propose new signage and striping at next week's council meeting to help slow traffic.
"We're going to be proposing basically, you know, signage and striping approach where we will, you know, paint some white lines and some yellow lines to better define what the traffic zones actually are."
Hugg added that adding signage and striping should help slow drivers and reduce speeding.
"It tends to slow people down. When people come up to a road that's, you know, a curved curb blacktop with no lines on it, it has a different impact on them than if they come to a road with the two white lines from the edge and a center yellow line. People try to actually slow down a little bit. So that's going to be part of the answer."
However, Bell said the city's plan does not go far enough and feels the only way to stop the speeding is to close off the entrance.
"If we need a street closed, it's because every person on this street has seen the damage and the danger."
The city's striping and signage proposal goes before the Dover Safety Committee on Tuesday, December 9. If approved, it would then be sent to the full council for a vote at a later date.
