Neighbors talk about traffic issues on Mockingbird Lane

“I hear every bang, every crash, every screech, every everything,” Guerin says.

Guerin, who is in her 60s, has lived in her home for about 35 years with her husband. She describes her neighbors on Mockingbird and around the Yosemite Lane horseshoe as ideal, but the traffic issues, which she says have been ramping up over the past five or six years, are not.

Because of her close proximity, Guerin says she’s had to help push vehicles out of the way after wrecks and learned that Dallas Police officers don’t respond to all car crashes.

From January 2024 to June 2025, the City’s Transportation and Public Works Department reported that there were 20 crashes in Guerin’s neighborhood, one of which fatal.

Mockingbird Lane from US-75 to Loop 12 is on the City’s High Injury Network, which are “city streets that account for a disproportionate number of fatal and severe crashes (i.e., the 7% of roads where 62% of crashes resulting in a death or severe injury occurred),” according to the City’s website.

The Lakewood/East Dallas Advocate has reported on major Mockingbird crashes before, including last year when three people died after their vehicle crashed into a tree west of White Rock Lake.

Guerin decided to contact the City for help. She was surprised when they asked her how the problem needed to be solved.

“I’m not an engineer,” she says with exasperation (though she does think the speed limit should be lowered). “I don’t know all your capabilities. I’m just a citizen that wants to help people.”

Earlier this summer, the City’s Transportation and Public Works Department listed a slew of changes that have been made to Mockingbird Lane, specifically in Guerin’s neighborhood.

“Recent improvements to improve traffic safety along Mockingbird between Abrams and Williamson Roads include several speed limit signs installed between Abrams and Yosemite Lane, a speed feedback sign near Yosemite, curve warning signs and chevrons to mark curvature in the road between Hillside Drive and Yosemite, and replacing the 4-inch-thick broken lane lines with 6-inch-thick solid white lines to delineate lanes between Hillside and Yosemite,” according to the department’s statement. “In addition, Mockingbird Lane has received fresh lane line striping every three years.”

Mockingbird Lane in our neighborhood currently isn’t being studied like Abrams Road and Skillman Street are. (The City has analyzed conditions of the Lakewood-area sections of Abrams and Skillman starting in fall 2023 to make improvements.) However, the City’s Transportation and Public Works Department says speed and traffic volume studies have been conducted on Mockingbird previously.

“Full transportation safety studies for corridors are prioritized based on high-injury network rankings, available funding and community input,” according to the City’s statement. “The Abrams Road transportation safety study does recommend pedestrian-related upgrades for the signalized intersection of Abrams and Mockingbird.”

The Abrams Road study reports that the Mockingbird intersection is the third highest for intersection crashes between 2019 and 2023 on Abrams.

One of Guerin’s neighbors, who requested anonymity because she feared retaliation against her husband’s job, described chronic speeding, car crashes and racing on Mockingbird Lane.

One of the wrecks involved another vehicle that spun around and totaled her car while it was parked outside her home.

“I was with my mom, who was visiting from out of town, and not even five minutes before it happened, we had just gotten out of the car and brought groceries inside,” she says. 

She adds, “That just makes you stop and like, ‘Whoa, we live on a crazy street.’”

This neighbor suggested alternating the traffic signals so that vehicles would have to stop at more red lights and slow down, putting more space between homes and the road, and using bike lanes to calm traffic. She and her husband have talked about moving away to a safer location, but that’s not something they want.

“It’s unfortunate because we love the area, and the neighborhood has so much to offer,” she says.

They moved to their home in 2022 and liked that they were in walking distance to amenities, like the restaurants near Hillside Drive. But after seeing what Mockingbird Lane is like, this neighbor doesn’t dare walk there.

“It feels like we can’t actually utilize it to the full extent,” she says.