You can’t make me ride in a bike lane.

 http://thesource.metro.net/2013/06/19/you-cant-make-me-ride-in-a-bike-lane/

By Jung Gatoona, June 19, 2013

 

 

It seems like bike lanes are surfacing up overnight on just about every street in Los Angeles these days. I, like many cycling advocates in Los Angeles see this as a positive change for the city, one that benefits thousands within the community.

With the expansion of bike lanes throughout the city, I’m able to see more and more encouraged folks taking up their bikes to commute, and interest those who’ve never even thought of taking up cycling to commute. Bike lanes are GOOD.

With that said, I don't ride in a majority of the bike lanes in the area, and you can't make me. No matter how much you aggressively honk or yell in your harassing attempts at trying to spread your beliefs of where cyclists should and shouldn't be, I'm staying where I can legally be and want to be at.
Over the years I've had the pleasure of encountering some really aggressive and impatient drivers who feel it necessary to roll down their passenger window, lecturing me and fellow cyclists to get off the street they're on, and ride in another street that has a bike lane.

“STOP WASTING MY TAX DOLLARS! GET ON THE BIKE LANE!”"THERE'S A BIKE LANE YOU IDIOT! USE IT!”

Listen, sure I’ll have to make you suffer the excruciating and tormenting pain of having to deal with the miniscule 5-10 seconds it takes to safely pass me, but angering you and other drivers is not what I’m trying to accomplish here. My goal has always been to get home and to work as safely as possible on my bicycle, and for me, riding in a bike lane has always led to a slew of dangerous situations and near-accidents in my commutes. There are also many places where there are no bike lanes and cyclists have no choice but to ride in traffic.

What most drivers don’t understand is that not all cyclists ride in the same manner and speed, and such differences determine for individuals if riding in a bike lane is safe or unsafe. For me and cyclists who ride at speeds of 22-27MPH, the last place we want to be is confined in a bike lane that has car doors opening up to our right, pedestrians/animals popping out between cars, and drivers making unsafe right-turns without legally merging into the bike lane. Again, it's not always a matter of speed. There are roads marked as bike routes — supposedly the safest places to ride — across the region that put cyclists out there with car traffic.

So please, understand that it’s not that cyclists such as myself who ride outside the bike lane want to anger drivers nor is it because we feel entitled to the road. It's because like any other person that uses the road, we all want to get to our destination(s) safely. And, more importantly, just because there’s the addition of a bike lane on a street, it doesn't mean that all the other lanes are suddenly reserved exclusively for cars now, and that I and other cyclists are required to use that bike lane.

Caltrans construction notice: closures on the Pasadena Freeway this weekend

 http://thesource.metro.net/2013/06/20/caltrans-construction-notice-closures-on-the-pasadena-freeway-this-weekend/

By Lan-Chi Lam, June 20, 2013

 

News release from Caltrans is below and there’s also more info on the project website:

SR-110 FULL FREEWAY CLOSURE PLANNED

LOS ANGELES – The California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) will close the northbound Arroyo Seco Parkway (SR-110) between Figueroa Boulevard and Avenue 43 from 1 a.m. to 8 a.m. Saturday, June 22. The northbound SR-110 connectors to the northbound and southbound Golden State Freeway (I-5) will be closed at the same time.
Southbound SR-110 will be closed between Orange Grove Boulevard and York Boulevard on June 22 from midnight to 7 a.m.

On Sunday, June 23 northbound SR-110 will be closed between Avenue 60 and Orange Grove Boulevard from 1 a.m. to 9 a.m. Southbound SR-110 will be closed between Avenue 60 and Avenue 52 and then from Avenue 52 to Figueroa Street beginning at midnight and ending at 8 a.m.

Detours will be in place.

The closures are in relation to a slab replacement project from College Street to Orange Grove Boulevard in South Pasadena. All American Asphalt is the contractor on the $800,000 project.

State of California • Department of Transportation
Date: June 20, 2013
District: Los Angeles/Ventura
Contact: Judy Gish
Phone: (213) 897-3487
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

First-Ever Rose Bowl Tours Start Saturday

 On guided tours, the public will have behind-the-scenes access to never before seen locations in the Pasadena stadium.

 http://pasadena-ca.patch.com/groups/arts-and-entertainment/p/firstever-rose-bowl-tours-start-saturday

By Jessica Hamlin, June 19, 2013

After renovations and decades in the spotlight, the Rose Bowl Stadium is opening its doors for public tours for the first time in its history.

The grand opening weekend kicks off Saturday and Sunday, June 22 and 23, with tours at 10 a.m., 12 p.m., 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. Tours will continue Thursdays through Sundays at the same times.


Attendees will have access to some behind-the-scenes and never before seen locations, including:
-UCLA locker room
-Newly renovated Pavilion
-Court of Champions
-Official working press boxes
-Actual playing field

The tour lasts an hour and a half and is meant for people of all ages and interests.

Tickets cost $17.50 for adults and $14.50 for kids (5-12), seniors (65+) and military with I.D. Tickets can be purchased online or at the stadium ticket booth outside gate A.

For tickets and more information, click here to go to the Rose Bowl’s website. 

Crenshaw Leader Calls for Ouster of Metro CEO Leahy

 http://www.thefrontpageonline.com/articles1-12994/CrenshawLeaderCallsforOusterofMetroCEOLeahy

By Ari L. Noonan, June 19, 2013

That the Metro staff, which advises the Metro Board, turned down the offers by three of four contract bidders to build a tunnel at the end of the Crenshaw light rail line within the budget guidelines “is a statement about the staff’s obtuseness,” says Damien Goodmon of the Crenshaw Subway Coalition.

“It also shows that Metro lacks sensitivity to community concerns and lack of sensibility to the capabilities of reputable contractors.”

For two years, the Metro Board dismissively told the hundreds of South Los Angeles residents attending their monthly meetings that they only could afford stations and tunnels in other parts of the city, that to do so on the Crenshaw line exceeded their budget.

Then the wall of resolve began to crumble at last month’s meeting when Mayor Villaraigosa and the four votes he controls suddenly jumped the tracks and decided, well, yes, they could afford to build a station in Leimert Park Village.

But that is only half of what the city’s most prominent black community has been begging the powerful transportation agency to do. They want the tracks to curve underground for 11 blocks at the south end of the line for safety reasons involving pedestrian school traffic and the flow of business during the five years required to build the tracks.

Mr. Goodmon, who has been leading the South Los Angeles charge, seeking the two accommodations taken for granted elsewhere, previously said the station won approval because Mayor Villaraigosa finally felt “pressured” to do the right thing.

Can this kind of political lightning strike two straight meetings  – can South Los Angeles residents win the tunnel vote at the next Metro meeting a week from tomorrow?

Who Knows the Outcome?

Mr. Goodmon says, logically, he cannot be sure. “In view of what the contractors have said, we would hope that Antonio Villaraigosa (who will be termed out three days later) or Mayor-elect Garcetti see that as a new opportunity to work with this community so the region can see a project that will be a long-term benefit for us.”

Metro CEO Art Leahy, along with Mayor Villaraigosa, also is in the crosshairs of this dispute because it was Mr. Goodmon’s research that uncovered the crucial information about the contractors, which, the community organizer says, Metro has been trying to hide. Is there any shame or pressure attached to Mr. Leahy for the next week’s public meeting?

“Absolutely,” says Mr. Goodmon. “He is going to show himself. We are completely reasonable in calling for his resignation or for him to be fired. Once these (contractor) documents become public – we heard back from the MTA they don’t want to release them until after next week’s vote – how convenient for them? – it will be clear that this is bureaucracy at work.

“This is Leahy defending his butt. Let’s be specific. The board in May of 2011 rejected both the station and the tunnel because Leahy said they would be $400 million to $500 million extra. From that, we called Villaraigosa everything under the sun. The board acted on the numbers Leahy had given them. We said Mayor Villaraigosa was betraying us. We organized a great number of influential African American leaders to tell our people to vote against Measure J (the mayor’s pet project), and it failed.  And (only) now are we finding out the number (asserted by Mr. Leahy) doesn’t hold up, that he was exaggerating by five-fold.”

Why Isn’t There a Massive Civil Response to Traffic Violence?

Why Isn’t There a Massive Civil Response to Traffic Violence?

 http://streetsblog.net/2013/06/20/why-isnt-there-a-massive-civil-response-to-traffic-violence/#more-84663

By Angie Schmitt, June 20, 2013

Jonathan Maus at Bike Portland is having a contemplative moment. In rapid succession over the last few days, he’s seen so much evidence of the damage that traffic inflicts: a seriously injured cyclist in Portland, a new study linking exhaust inhalation to autism, the death of journalist Michael Hastings, who was killed in a Los Angeles car crash. The list goes on.

Mike Cooley remains hospitalized after he was struck from behind while riding his bike in Portland Saturday.

Sometimes, it can feel overwhelming, Maus writes, to be constantly inundated with news about lives cut short on American streets.

— Also yesterday afternoon, 65-year-old Scappoose, Oregon resident Wayne McCormick was driving his Buick on Highway 30 when 39-year-old Mark Thomas’s SUV crossed over the center median “for an unconfirmed reason” and slammed into him. McCormick died instantly and Thomas has life-threatening injuries.

— Scott Van Hiatt of Neskowin, Oregon was arrested Monday for criminally negligent homicide. On May 14th, Van Hiatt drove his pickup into Seattle resident Richard Swanson and killed him as he walked on Highway 101. Swanson had planned to dribble a soccer ball from Seattle to Brazil.

— And this morning, a semi-truck plummeted 65 feet from the top deck of I-84 westbound as it transitions onto I-5 in Portland. The driver, who apparently collided with a small car prior to the wreck, sustained life-threatening injuries and had to be extricated from the cab by rescue teams.

This is just a sampling of the carnage that hits my inbox and Twitter feed every day. It disgusts me and it’s embarrassing as an American citizen to know that this happens in my country. It’s also got me wondering… Why isn’t there a massive civil response or national dialogue about the rampant traffic deaths and destruction we experience every day? Look at the national movement to defeat and cure cancer. Where are all the 5K runs and fundraisers to raise awareness and create urgency to stop this madness? Can we at least pick a color and make some bracelets? Are we really just going to continue business as usual and accept this? Maybe I’m part of the problem because I just sit here and rant about it on my blog.

Until the awareness and urgency about traffic behavior and transportation policy moves beyond the livable streets advocates and wonks, I’m afraid nothing will change.

Elsewhere on the Network today: Streets.mn explains how tactical urbanism helped transform a Twin Cities’ street. Better Institutions looks at the quality of service provided by private airlines in the United States as a potential argument against transportation privatization. And Greater Greater Washington discusses the upsides and downsides of an effort to restrict sidewalk cycling in the D.C. area.

Comments to the article:

• p_chazz • 

  Maybe there isn't a massive civil response because the automobile death rate is low and getting lower:
  "U.S. traffic fatalities continue to plunge, reaching their lowest level since 1949, well before the creation of the American interstate highway system.
  "According to estimates from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 32,310 people died in traffic accidents in 2011, a 1.7% year-over-year decline. That marks the seventh consecutive year that the death rate has declined.
  "Since just 2005, traffic fatalities have fallen by more than 25% — and when measured in terms of deaths per mile driven the figure has reached its lowest level since record-keeping began in 1921, according to NHTSA."
  http://www.nbcnews.com/busines...
  So to the Streetsblog writers and commenters stop it with the manufactured outrage, the anecdotal data, the hyperventilating over "death machines" already! It does nothing for your credibility, and can be countered by cold, hard facts.
  

  
  

  
  
  • 

    Joe R. p_chazz •
    

    Sorry, but I'm not seeing how 32,310 people dying is anything to celebrate, even if it's less than prior years. That's equivalent to one 9/11 every 5 weeks, or one jumbo jet crashing twice a week, or the total number of soldiers killed in Iraq since we've been there. If there was this level of carnage associated with any other mode of transport the NTSB would shut it down until it could be fixed. Besides the direct deaths from motor vehicle collisions, you have about ten times as many deaths from environmental pollution caused by these vehicles. 300K annual deaths in the US alone just from transportation hardly strikes me as a good number.
    What's noteworthy isn't the justified reaction here at Streetsblog to this level of carnage, but the general lack of it elsewhere. The newspapers mourned the 9/11 dead for years while our lawmakers and leaders did everything in their power to keep it from ever happening again. And yet over ten times as many die each year, every single year, just getting from point A to point B with hardly a peep from either the media or our leaders. Where's the outrage over this? This isn't just a cost of doing business, nor should it be accepted as such. If we can't make motor vehicles safer, then move goods and people by other modes which are already proven to be safer.
    

    
    
• 

  Gary • 

  • 
    

  Maybe one thing is to only have new cars come out once every 3-4 years? this new model out every year is insanity. It's a endless replenishing of cars clogging streets, killing people along the way.
  

  
  
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  Gary • 

  Perhaps the makers of these killing machines that continue to turn them out by the millions should be severely limited. They're trying their best to stop guns, why not the same tactic with car makers?
  

  
  
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  AL M • 

  • 
    

  Boy is that ever the truth. Death on the highway is as american as apple pie apparently.But I think this belief is basically world wide. There are 2 million deaths world wide every hear in vehicle related crashes, nobody blinks.
  Remember the scale, thats 2,000,000 a year! That's basically a holocaust every year and nobody says a thing.
  You'd at the least thing there were be some sort of safety movement active there. Not sure what you can do about reckless people in cars
  

  
  
  
• 

  BlueFairlane • 

  I don't think the comparison of culture's reaction to cancer deaths with culture's reaction to traffic deaths tracks, for a number of reason. The biggest of these is that the vast majority of us use a car at least part of the time, and we do so voluntarily knowing the risks. But nobody volunteers to get cancer. Cancer is therefore seen as a random and unfair tragedy that strikes for reasons over which we have no control, whereas we knew what we were doing when we got in a car.
  

  
  
  • 

    HighNoon BlueFairlane •

    I've read down this thread a bit and it seems a part of your premise Blue is that you don't acknowledge the presence of things like negligence, reckless driving/behavior, and the decisions and acts people take that make much of this preventable, regardless of whether or not we accept the risks of the road.
    Statements such as: "Culture at large simply sees this as the cost of doing business" and "Rightly or wrongly, we don't look at the pedestrian as somebody outside
    the contract, as we automatically assume that at some point, the
    pedestrian was one of the rest of us inside a car somewhere" simply ignores the fact that if our society were willing to implement greater levels of accountability for actions that are within our control, this issue would not be at the magnitude it is today.... something you are ok with and others aren't.
    
  • 

    Daniel Winks BlueFairlane • 

    Who, exactly, volunteers to breathe in all the toxic shit that spews out of everyone else's tail pipes? Who, exactly, volunteers to drink water tainted with roadway runoff? Breast cancer wasn't nearly the sort of health issue it is today until we started polluting the planet. A LOT of those who get cancer get it because of the toxins they are constantly exposed to.
    Also, who volunteers to have their body violently torn apart by a motorist just because they decided to walk down a sidewalk? A large number of murders caused by people using motor vehicles have victims who aren't using a motor vehicle.
    

    
    
    
    • 

      BlueFairlane Daniel Winks • 

      • 
        

      Your second paragraph is addressed in my response to Shaun above. You likely won't agree, and that's okay.
      Your first paragraph is asking that the culture at large make connections they're not likely to make, and that aren't necessarily even supportable. One, most of us don't really think about the toxic shit that spews from a tailpipe except on those superhot summer days when there's an inversion. If we did, we wouldn't live in cities. We don't taste the roadway runoff in our water, so it doesn't usually even cross our minds. Chicago doesn't even treat its stormwater sewage. Why? Because the public hasn't been concerned enough to demand it. And sure, breast cancer wasn't the health concern a century ago that it is today, but there are many reasons outside industrialized society for that: a cultural attitude that tended to turn its face from cancer--especially breast cancer--and hide it behind whispers, and better and earlier diagnosis that, frankly, has left a lot more survivors to talk about it.
      
      • 

        Daniel Winks BlueFairlane • 

        Yes, it seems that most people are either too ignorant or too uncaring to bother thinking about how their driving affects others. Driving, world-wide killed 1,230,000 people last year. That's directly caused death. From all the sources I've been able to find, the pollution caused by driving kills around TEN TIMES more people than driving does directly. Around 10,000,000 deaths, per year, from pollution. To put that number into perspective, it's like a WTC collapse worth of deaths every 2 hours or so. All day, every day, all year. Or a loaded 747 slamming into the ground every 20 or so minutes.
        Would people make drastic changes to avoid a WTC-level amount of deaths every couple of hours? I'd hope the answer is certainly they would. The issue is the absurd amount of money being spent by the auto industry, asphalt industry, oil industry, etc to all maintain the status quo. Billions spent every year to make people think it's OK to drive. To make them not think that every turn of that key is an active participation in mass murder on a scale that's pretty much unimaginable. The other side has a million here, a million there and pretty much all of that money is spent on research and statistics to try to zero in on exactly how bad the pollution really is, not educating the public.
        
        • 

          BlueFairlane Daniel Winks 

          • 
            

          Ah, so it's all the fault of "the man." Okay.
          Maybe the lack of connection is the result of ignorance or apathy, maybe not. The lack of connection exists, though, and every single one of us engages in some form of it, somewhere. And the WTC comparison is no more likely to bridge that gap than that cancer one, as again, the people who died at the WTC were killed through no act of their own by very specific people, people to whom we could assign a face. Whose face would we assign to the traffic/car pollution deaths? For most of us, it would be our own.
          Meanwhile, consider that there are currently 7 billion people in the world. in 1900, there were about 1.8 billion. In 1800, there were less than 1 billion. The difference owes to the internal combustion engine, without which we never would have grown so numerous. In a world with so many more people, more people are going to die. Many of them are going to die as a result of the thing that allowed the bulk of us to exist in the first place. Culture at large simply sees this as the cost of doing business. You feel differently, and that's fine, perhaps even commendable. But you won't get the rest of the culture to go along with you.
          

          
          

          
          
          • 

            Joe R. BlueFairlane
            

            "The difference owes to the internal combustion engine, without which we never would have grown so numerous."
            Except that since at least the 1950s there's no longer been any reason to use or rely on internal combustion engines. From the 1950s onwards we could generate electricity via nuclear power which could power transportation, farming, large ships, virtually our entire world. Actually, we could probably go back even further to the time when low-cost hydroelectricity was available. And now we have viable means of generating power via solar, wind, tidal, and geothermal as well. We haven't needed to rely heavily on the internal combustion engine since at least the 1950s. At this stage we could probably get rid of internal combustion engines altogether. We made a societal choice to use internal combustion engines. And we made a similar choice to rely on personal transportation driven by poorly-trained, mostly incompetent individuals. Those were both horrible choices but they were made because some companies got rich off them. And now we have people like you with absolutely no imagination who can't even see a different way of doing things than the status quo.
            
          • 

            Shaun Jacobsen BlueFairlane 

            The difference is not owed entirely to the internal combustion engine. Advacements in farming technology and the reduction of contagious disease are others. The car wasn't even that popular until the early-mid-20th century. And certainly not like we know it until the 1950s. Even if your statement were true it would not be a case for maintaining the status quo. We can continue to exist like this without people making trips in their cars for every little thing. Moving large quantities of goods is one of a few good things that can come from driving.
            

            
            
  • 

    Shaun Jacobsen BlueFairlane 

    • 
      

    That is not entirely true. People get cancer for various reasons that can be within their control. Not always, but things like lung cancer caused by smoking... that's preventable.
    The point is also that drivers actions don't only affect other drivers. They kill pedestrians and cyclists too who are overwhelmingly innocent bystanders. There may be an understanding among drivers that driving is risky, but when drivers start killing and injuring innocent people, then it becomes something to rally around.
    

    
    
    • 

      BlueFairlane Shaun Jacobsen •
      

      Two things. 1. I do think there is a different cultural reaction to people stricken with cancers seen as the result of a person's actions. I don't think we've tended to see lung cancer patients in the same light as, say, breast cancer patients, and lung cancer hadn't seen nearly the same levels of charitable donations.; There isn't the same kind of outcry, because we believe deep down that the lung cancer patient brought it on themselves. 2. While there are a relatively small number of exceptions, the vast majority of us are at least occasionately drivers or riders, and that vast majority drives (heh) the cultural mindset. Yes, a pedestrian may be an innocent bystander in that moment, but for good or ill most people look at the rules of the world as they live them, not as we imagine others might live them. Rightly or wrongly, we don't look at the pedestrian as somebody outside the contract, as we automatically assume that at some point, the pedestrian was one of the rest of us inside a car somewhere. Because we see them as just like us, we don't see them as innocent.
      
      • 

        Shaun Jacobsen BlueFairlane •

        • 
          

        Right about the different cancers and diseases and their causes... not sure about your second point. Maybe I don't see it that way since I do not drive a car. Shouldn't allow people to think that everyone is expendable since they're all "guilty" at some point.
        
        • 

          BlueFairlane Shaun Jacobsen •

          I'm not talking about what's right or wrong or what should or shouldn't be allowed. I'm just talking about what I think "is." We all tend to have world views built around our own choices, and we project that on everyone.
          
• 

  Adam Herstein • 

  Car culture is so ingrained in American life that we treat traffic deaths as a necessary evil to maintain our lifestyle. We use terms like "accident" or "the car hit…" to absolve any responsibility on the driver.
  

  
  
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  slotaag • 

  Perhaps this discussion would be more useful without the dissemination of the pseudoscientific idea that environmental factors are linked to developmental disabilities.
  

  
  
  
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    Angie Schmitt Mod slotaag • 

    That's a Harvard study you're calling "pseudo-scientific."
    

    
    
    
    • 

      p_chazz Angie Schmitt •

      And that's an argument from authority, Angie which is a logical fallacy. http://www.nizkor.org/features...
      

      
      
• 

  John • 

  Death & carnage (plus aggravation and expensive insurance) is the price we pay for the right to drive like idiots, with minimal driver education and traffic enforcement. It works for idiot drivers 99% of the time.
  

  
  
  
• 

  Shaun Jacobsen 

  It's more than a social compact between drivers. It's the car culture ingrained in America that has gotten so out-of-hand. You could confuse a drivers license for a constitutional right here. Judges often refuse to take away drivers licenses (even from drunk drivers), in fact, yesterday several pedestrians and a cyclist were injured when a repeat drunk driver smashed into the sidewalk in New York.
  And drivers licenses are practically handed out at age 16. I remember my driving test. It was no longer than 10 minutes. 10 minutes! They give you multiple tries on the test too. The difficulty of the test is completely circumstantial, too. Mine was in heavy snow in a rural town of around 5,000 people. There weren't a lot of everyday obstacles drivers have to deal with.
  You can do so much harm in a motor vehicle but the punishment is never commensurate with the crime. I know of people who have killed people while driving and they get out of jail and are back on the streets within a few years.
  Add in our obsession with driving around 8-seater tanks (SUVs) that are much, much larger than the people that are driving them. People should not be allowed to drive such huge vehicles without proving absolute responsibility.
  
  • 

    Alex Knight Shaun Jacobsen •

    You're absolutely right on all points, Shaun. In so many parts of the country, taking away someone's license isn't just denying them driving, it's denying them mobility. "Just because they're a bad driver doesn't mean they don't deserve to get to their job and to the store!" So we let them drive anyway. Then, when they crash their car we pardon them so long as they weren't drunk because, "They were just trying to get to work! They didn't MEAN to run over that pedestrian. It was an ACCIDENT." Our solution is to tolerate this danger instead of addressing the root problem of auto-only development spanning most of the US.
    This foolish way of developing our communities grew out of an obsession with the car first by the Greatest Generation and then by the Baby Boomers. They literally built our country around the car and now we're stuck with unsafe, unhealthy, inefficient, and insolvent development everywhere we go. It's so pervasive that even in places like Portland and New York where you CAN live without a car, there is still a deeply entrenched entitlement to having one. It's not a problem that will be solved quickly. But we have to resolve to keep chipping away at it, as daunting a task as it is.
    

    
    
    
    • 

      Shaun Jacobsen Alex Knight 

      I know people who don't have drivers licenses and grew up in small Michigan towns, for example. They said they never needed it even as a teenager since they lived close to school and work and everything else. They're lucky.
      I live in Chicago now and I live car(e)-free. I can't imagine having a car. It would eat up so much of my money that I instead get to spend at shops and restaurants in the neighborhood. You can live without a car here. Even parents.
      I know a lot of people who move to this city and still keep their cars and are literally attached to them. They drive distances as short as a mile! It's absolutely insane. Kicking the car habit may not be easy but it just requires restructuring your life. Sometimes you just have to drive, it's inevitable. But most people don't need a personal car for every day of the week. Yet we keep designing our cities to accommodate this kind of drive-everywhere attitude. Surface parking lots, wide streets, etc... even in cities like New York.
      

       
  • 

    tamanduabeijo Shaun Jacobsen •

    If you're not familiar, do a search for "Jeanette Sliwinski" and "Michael Dahlquist" for a perfect example of how drivers' interests are privileged. In this case, the victims were also in a car, but the point is that murder by car is treated far differently than murder with a gun.
    

    
    
    • 

      Shaun Jacobsen tamanduabeijo 

      Suicide is selfish but this is way beyond selfish. I had not heard of this specific case but am aware of people driving and causing "accidents" to commit suicide.
      If she pleaded not guilty by reason of mental instability (or whatever), then she should theoretically never, ever be allowed to drive again. The Wikipedia article says she could have gotten a license in 2010.
      

      
      
• 

  Daphna •

  As a start, the dialog needs to change. It needs to be "collision" instead of "accident". It needs to be "the driver hit" or "the driver blew the light" or "the driver collided" not "the car collided" or "the car blew the light" or "the car collided."
  Also collisions needs to be portrayed as preventable not as unavoidable. It would also help if the numbers of those killed by motorists start to be reported more widely and put in context. One example: similar numbers of people are killed by motor vehicle violence each year as by breast cancer in the United States - both around 40,000. There is a huge amount of awareness, sympathy and fundraising to prevent breast cancer deaths, yet there is little public angst over motor vehicle violence that claims the same number of lives annually. If the numbers are reported in a way the public can relate to them, and if the public gets the idea that these deaths are preventable rather than an unavoidable cost of getting around, then outcry would start to grow.
  

  
  
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  Ex-driver •
  

  Same reason we won't do anything about gun violence. BECUZ FREEDUM.
  

  
  
  
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  Alen Teplitsky 

  i wondered this same thing until I read the history of the High Line in NYC. there used to be a freight railroad on the west side of manhattan. it used to kill lots of people who would try to beat the train by crossing in front of it. the railroad added ground guides and people still died. finally they built the elevated tracks that became the High Line.
  When you mix man and machines, people will get hurt. there is that minority of people who will try to hurry to save every second possible and someone will get hurt.
  
• 

  Larry Littlefield 

  I've given my idea before, which another commentor called "the social compact of the road."
  Motor vehicles are dangerous, and deaths and injuries will inevitably occur with their use, but we all want to use them. Therefore, since you accept the risk I will create by driving my car, I must accept the risk you create by driving your car. Except for a few risk-increasing behaviors that have been deemed socially unacceptable, such as drunk driving.
  But pedestrians and bicycles don't present the risk of harm to those in motor vehicles, so they are outside the compact and receive nothing from it.
  
  • 

    ladyfleur Larry Littlefield 

    C'mon Larry, you know bicyclists and pedestrians cause car accidents all the time. It's our fault drivers are crashing into us, and each other too. All our fault.
    
  • 

    Jake Wegmann Larry Littlefield 

    I think that makes a lot of sense.