Only the traffic signals at Main and Maple Streets bring occasional abatement of the flow and the din.

The setting for our interview could not be more appropriate. On this sunny fall day, I am talking to Ed Hagelstein about his obsession with safer city streets and his concern that traffic in Northampton has sped out of control.

Hagelstein, a Northampton native, has lived on Nonotuck Street for 34 years. Before that he lived a few hundred yards down Park Street from the bench we are sharing. For the last two years, Hagelstein has become something of a traffic activist - first as a member of the Mayor's Safe Streets Task Force, and for the last year as virtually the only member of the public to show up for each and every meeting of the Northampton Transportation Committee, save one when he was out of town, (but he then sent a letter to the committee to make some point).

He ticks off statistics from the summary of the recent transportation plan prepared for the city by the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission: Between 1997 and 1999, there were 1,495 traffic-related injuries in Northampton or 500 a year. Based on population, that's one injury for every 19 residents.

During that same three-year period, there were seven fatalities.

The summary claimed that "the city was ranked as the most dangerous community in Hampshire Country based on traffic crashes per population."

The cause is no secret, people are driving much too fast. "Speed is what kills, speed is what kills," says Hagelstein, who is now retired from his job as a radiochemist for a firm in Connecticut.

Much of his anger at unsafe driving derives from his own experience of traveling 100 miles a day to and from his job in Windsor, Conn. over a span of 35 years. "That was very good training for survival on the highway," he says.

The Safe Streets Task Force was an outgrowth of a 1999 accident that took place on Elm Street resulting in the death of a Smith College student.

Once involved with the task force, Hagelstein's personal interest in traffic issues took more concrete form.

In our conversation, he voices frustration that no specific steps have been taken to curb out-of-control traffic since the task force report was issued last summer. Instead, another committee is at work studying broader issues of transportation policy.

"Because I have a passion for street safety, I feel we are not moving fast enough," Hagelstein says. "I felt we should be implementing some of the recommendations for safer streets in tandem with developing an overall transportation plan."

He says the city claims it does not have the resources - manpower and money - to increase activities to make streets safer, especially in the area of enforcement.

Hagelstein seems unconvinced that the resource issue is what is behind the delay in slowing down traffic and promoting greater safety.

He cited a number of steps that could be taken that would not cost any money, such as passing a city ordinance banning the use of hand-held cell phones while driving.

Another step would be to dictate that motorists should drive with their headlights on at all times, a proven safety practice which is engineered into many newer cars.

The city should also support legislative changes in auto insurance laws to increase incentives for safe drivers by further reducing insurance premiums for those with good driving records, rather than only penalizing bad drivers with higher premiums.

Another step, he said, would be a "big, more creative or innovative enforcement effort. What we've been doing doesn't work. That's a given," which would require a shift of resources.

He suggests that all city DPW vehicles, including "dump trucks," be made available for traffic enforcement, by equipping them with radar. "It would be like having another unmarked cruiser on the road."

In early October, I attended one of the two public forums held by the Transportation Committee, at which there appeared to the total consensus on the current lack of rigorous enforcement of traffic rules - whether it was speed limits, running yellow or red lights, ignoring stop signs or passing in restricted lanes.

But, of course, this consensus arose from a mere 30 or 40 people out of a city population of almost 30,000, who took the trouble to show up at the forum.

Hagelstein believes public apathy is as much a cause of the spiraling traffic problems as bad, irritable, dangerous drivers. "Why should the city chase after this problem if the public is not sufficiently interested, " he asks.

A 1999 survey by the Safe Streets Task Force and the Leeds Civic Association found that 73 percent of those responding said speeding on Florence Street was the major traffic issue. "Where were they the other night at the forum," he asks.

In contrast to demonstrations and protests aimed at Saving the Mountain or Saving Old Main, says Hagelstein, "there has never been a protest over death on our highways. We're not going to protest what we're doing wrong."

Nationwide there are some 42,000 traffic fatalities and 3.2 million injuries annually.

Meanwhile, Hagelstein notes that the transportation plan does not use the word "accidents" as causing traffic injuries or deaths. They are "crashes" because the way many people drive "it's just a matter to time before they hurt somebody."

"This is a real proof there is a God and he real busy all over the country trying to save people," says Hagelstein.

Of course, God should not be our only recourse for making our streets safer and keeping our families in tact, but for now it's about the best we can do.