hmmm

We don’t normally report on vehicle crashes here on the Capitol Hill blog, but this was so outrageous we couldn’t help ourselves.

A 30-year-old woman in Marietta, Georgia was convicted of vehicular homicide this week – and she wasn’t even driving a car. The woman was crossing the street with her three children when a driver, who had been drinking, hit and killed her four-year-old. The driver, Jerry Guy, was initially charged with “hit and run, first degree homicide by vehicle and cruelty to children,” Elise Hitchcock of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. “Charges were later dropped to just the hit and run charge.”

The man has previously been convicted of two hit-and-runs – on the same day, in 1997, one of them on the same road where he killed Raquel Nelson’s son.

Guy will serve six months for killing the boy, but Nelson will serve up to 36 months – just for crossing the street with her child. Yes, it’s true: they were not in a crosswalk. Are there any crosswalks on that street at all?

Hitchcock at the AJC says:

The conviction does not sit well with Sally Flocks, president and CEO of PEDS, a pedestrian advocacy organization.

“Invest the money in safe crossings,” Flocks said. “For the costs of the trial yesterday, they could have made a safe crossing. But they don’t want to do that.”

The Atlanta-Sandy-Springs-Marietta, Georgia metro area ranks 11th in the country for most dangerous streets for pedestrians, according to Transportation for America’s recent report on pedestrian safety and street design. The region had nearly 800 pedestrian deaths between 2000 and 2009.

Despite the fact that Atlanta-area municipalities continue to build roads, like the one where Nelson’s son was killed, with inadequate pedestrian crossings and sidewalks, and despite the fact that the federal government continues to vastly underfund pedestrian safety infrastructure on federally-funded roads and highways, the courts have pointed the finger at Nelson, blaming her for the death of her son on a road that was designed with no regard for pedestrian safety.

via streetsblog http://dc.streetsblog.org/2011/07/14/mother-convicted-of-vehicular-homicide-for-crossing-street-with-children/


+++UPDATE+++
28 JULY

A Georgia mother who faced a longer prison sentence than the drunk driver who killed her son has avoided time behind bars, following a public outcry. An all-white jury had convicted Raquel Nelson, an African American, of homicide by vehicle and of jaywalking. Nelson’s son, A.J., was killed as the family attempted to cross a busy street between a bus stop and their apartment complex. There were no crosswalks nearby. After facing three years in prison, Nelson has been ordered to serve one year’s probation and carry out 40 hours of community service. The driver who struck and killed A.J. — a partially blind man who admitted to drinking and using painkillers the day of the accident — served six months and is currently on probation. An online petition demanding leniency for Nelson prior to her sentencing gathered more than 125,000 supporters.

via democracynow.org

All for me, none for all

The other night I went to a neighbourhood open house hosted by the City,  to address concerns of local residents who are upset by “rat-runners”--drivers who use residential side streets to dodge the backed-up traffic that clogs the main thoroughfare of Hastings Street. 

As the city answers the vociferous complaints of a politicised neighbourhood group, formed to encourage traffic to go anywhere else but down their own street (and likely onto mine) both have completely failed to address the more pressing issues. The city and the citizens group seem eager to chase the particular symptom that is bedevilling them, but continue to completely ignore the wider disease that affects the whole metropolitan region.

It would seem the neighbourhood group is most concerned when people who don’t live in their ‘hood drive down their street in order to dodge the congestion on Hastings St. at  the morning and evening unhappy hours. They are incensed at the inconsiderate behaviour of drivers who roll through the stop signs and then speed between them--just like what happens on my street, and probably yours. They rail against the very system they are happy and eager to see maintained and expanded, so long as it is to their benefit. They identify all the ills that the ‘happy motoring’ lifestyle encompasses but fail to connect the dots to their own behaviour.

I applaud the people of the neighbourhood for organizing, standing up and squeaking their wheels at city hall, yet they simply seem to have the narrowest of NIMBY motivations. While they clearly see some of the problems endemic to car culture, their solution is to push it in someone else’s direction. 

The homeowners seem to have no problem with their own cars parked up and down both sides of the street, and I’m sure they smile and wave to one another as they all drive away in the morning, each single driver needing an oversized gas guzzler to get his- or her-self around town, oblivious to the destruction he leaves in his wake.

Just as the residents on the north side of Hastings St. complain, the rush hour traffic is altogether aggressive, noxious and downright dangerous on the south side too--crossing Pender street at 4:45 is not for the faint of heart, and is explicitly dangerous once winter’s early darkness settles.

As it turned out, the walk down the side of the Hastings Highway at the unhappy hour was more instructive than the oversized information panels that littered the room.

I actually try to avoid making the walk to the library (where the open house was held) during highway hours, it is just so disheartening.  The long lines of oversized vehicles each carrying but a single person, each boiling out pollution. The intersections crowded, forever slowed at light changes as always there is one more impatient guy who thinks he can squeeze through to the other side of his red light, blocking the cross traffic. 

This is where the real problem lies. Not the selfish fool who tries to run the light at the expense of the others, but the whole ludicrous, collectively insane behaviour. Every single day the same people sit in the same line-ups, boiling out pollution, oblivious to any but their own desires. ignorant beyond all understanding. I don’t really think most people are too stupid to acknowledge their own destructive behaviour, but i do think the vast majority CHOOSE to ignore it. And that is unconscionable.

Yes, I’ve heard all their excuses, and none of them wash. Certainly many people have serious legitimate transportation problems to overcome, but there are better solutions for nearly all of them.

Regionally, we know that automobile ownership is outpacing population growth. This in spite of the piecemeal and half-hearted efforts to encourage people to pursue their tasks with alternate forms of transportation. Thankfully they have stopped making Hummers, but there is no shortage of them on our streets. Along with the Escalades, the F-3500 trucks and every flavour of SUV, overwhelmingly occupied by a single person. That anybody believes he needs a 6000 lb. vehicle for personal transportation is beyond my comprehension.

How has selfishness and greed become so commonplace? When did an ostentatious and dangerous “fuck you” to everybody else become socially acceptable, even desirous and applauded? 

Predators live among us.

Nature of the Beast

Thursday evening, SFU downtown Vancouver, BC.
Book Launch: Carjacked: The Culture of the Automobile and Its Effect On Our Lives. by anthropologist Catherine Lutz and former marketer/investment banker turned high school teacher Anne Lutz Fernandez.

As book tours usually consist of a series of flights and taxis, it was refreshing to hear the authors of Carjacked state that their tour is being conducted through train and transit.

A captivating talk was enjoyed by a receptive audience, followed by a short question and answer session. They began with a few telling statistics which indicates that car culture is still flourishing in America, and by extension, in Canada. 150,000 new cars are sold everyday in America, and those cars are generally bigger, heavier, more expensive and carry a higher percentage of financing than ever before.

Through targeted marketing assaults and illusion-filled lifestyle advertising, North American society, and much of the developed and developing world has been thoroughly seduced by car culture. In most places, it has become so prevalent and ubiquitous as to go unquestioned and to be unassailable. The fish does not question the water, the motorist does not question his ‘right’ to drive.

After quickly identifying the broad canvas of the car “system” (basically: industry, government, infrastructure-investment, habit, and consumerism-culture) the authors explain that their work focuses on the last of these, upon the consumerist and social history and implications of the automobile as centrepiece of our current culture.

Within this social context, the authors point to some of the prevailing myths about automobile ownership. They further identify these commonly held assumptions, generated by car companies’ advertising/marketing machine, as points of attack to challenge the car culture monolith.

They identify the love-hate relationship many have with their cars--but it would seem the hate only occurs when the actual life fails to live up to the promises and illusions of the lifestyle advertising.

Of particular interest was the auto industry’s notions on safety, or at least those notions they are trying to sell you, the customer. Of course the thrust of safety engineering, since Ralph Nader demanded seat belts, has been to improve the integrity and cushion of the interior cabin, effectively cocooning the occupants from outside harm, yet often from vital outside input as well. Through it all, the car companies insist that they are producing “safe” cars, while driving remains an inherently dangerous activity.

But now attached to this idea of safety in the event of a collision, comes the idea of your car protecting you from all the apparent dangers of a hostile world. These dangers will be depicted either as the forces of nature, or else from more insidious, unnamed evils. With the culture of fear being racheted up beyond belief in the last ten years, this is an easy sell for the car companies.

Curiously, in many aspects of the car advertising game, the car is sold as a solution to the problems of the car. The monotony of the commute is solved with in-car distractions, the traffic jam is solved by a more comfortable seat, the pollution problem is solved by better air filters, pollution concerns are solved by electric cars, hottest summer on record, turn up the A/C, problem solved!...the madness goes on and on.

Car culture has insinuated itself into every stage of our lives, from childhood indoctrination (Disney movies, hot wheels toys...), through the coming-of-age ritual of your first driver’s license, into group identification and notions of individualism and status, and onto the reluctance and even rebellion of seniors who need to relinquish their driver’s licenses. Many feel it is an indispensable part of their daily routine, and have trouble and anxiety even considering a change of lifestyle. Obviously there is a great reluctance among motorists to abandon their cars in favour of more sensible transportation, even among those who recognize the problems.

For those who desire a better collective future, one that is not centered around the cult of the automobile, one not based upon keeping our cars happy at all costs, the talk by the authors of Carjacked was a reminder of the nature of the beast we must fight against, and shed some light of the size and complexity of that beast.

Happy Motoring

You selfish bastards.

Open Letter

--an open letter to the motorist who nearly killed me last Friday morning, from a bicycle rider

Dear Ma'am,

We first met at a four way stop in suburban Burnaby. It was Friday morning and, I guess, we were both on our way to work. As I was to your right, I proceeded to turn right, while you waited your turn and proceeded straight. We were both headed down the hill, we both had to stop at the bottom to wait for traffic to clear. I was in front of you, but surely not blocking your view. You could not have failed to notice there were cars parked along both sides of the narrow street, allowing a space where only one vehicle could safely travel at a time.

When you leaned on your horn I was not too upset. Sadly, this is an all too common occurrence, usually a sign of ignorance and impatience, no matter what vehicles we choose to drive. However, when you revved your engine and proceeded to illegally pass me within four inches of my elbow, that is what upset me. Your choice to dangerously pass me was as much a threat as you pointing a gun out your window. Your choice to deliberately endanger my life raised my anger. Go figure.

Perhaps you were unclear about why I was in the middle of the travel lane. As I cannot trust that people will look before opening their doors into traffic, I cannot be as close to the parked cars as you might like. Should someone fail to check and open their door in front of me, my choice is to crash into a hard sharp metal object and the person exiting their vehicle, or swerve out into traffic, right in front of you. Sorry, but neither of these is good, so I will always choose the third option--to be in the middle of the street where I can see and be seen, where a car door heedlessly swung open will have no effect upon me.

I am not in the middle of the lane to show off the beauty and superior efficiency of my vehicle. I am not there to deliberately slow you down. My reason for being there is purely selfish I will admit, it is for my own safety. I am in the middle of the road because it is not safe for you to pass. When it is safe, I will most certainly pull to the side to allow you by. Until then, please be patient.

If you would have exercised two seconds of patience, I would have turned left at the next intersection. I did not want you tailgating me any more than you wanted me slowing your progress. Maybe you were running late, but if I ended up under the wheels of your truck due to your reckless negligence, what delay would that have caused you? Would you have even stopped?

If you had exercised two seconds of patience, we would have both arrived at work happier people, instead of being angered and frustrated for the duration of our commute and beyond.

When you stopped and rolled down your window, I enquired if you were deliberately trying to kill me. From my perspective this is what you were attempting to do. I seriously doubt this was your intention; I'm sure friends and family regard you as a nice person. However, for a lack of two seconds of patience, you could have negatively changed both our lives forever.

Your only reply was, "Share the Road." Perhaps you are confused about what this means. It does not mean I should cower in the gutter and allow your environment killing dinosaur to roar by heedlessly. It does not mean I should put my safety in jeopardy so that you can arrive at the next stop sign two seconds earlier.

Bicycle riders have no choice but to share the road, so this is mostly a plea to motorists. Just because you choose the most selfish of transportation options does not mean your time is more valuable than mine, it does not mean you have any more right to the road than I do, and it certainly does not give you any right to deliberately endanger my life.

yours,
on two wheels,
David

Duelling with Buses

Anyone who is running a stop sign at full speed and failing to check if the other stops are occupied, is obviously a danger to herself and other road users. It seems that many people never studied rudimentary physics and have no understanding of inertia and braking distance, and the dangers large heavy vehicles can pose. But like the jerk who collided with me, no amount of public campaigning or private instruction will change idiotic behavior in those who are idiots.

Away from stop signs, duelling with buses on busy streets is one of the most dangerous situations facing a rider. The uneducated person on a bike may believe that to suck the curb on the right hand side is the prime directive, whereas experience or skills courses teach us that this is not so.

For example, on a street like Broadway, where parked cars, bikes and buses essentially must share the right hand lane, the dangers posed by passing a bus, especially the elongated ones are extreme. Approaching a stopped and loading bus from behind I will typically check the bus' rear lights and indicators, and have a look down the right hand side to guage the progress of the loading/unloading of passengers. If I see the bus is about to pull out and re-enter traffic lanes, I will yield and try to be visible in the driver's mirrors, as I do not want to suck bus exhaust and leapfrog with the bus all the way down the road.

However, if I am confident i can pass the bus on its leftside before he pulls out, I will do so. The real danger comes, and frequently happens, when the driver fails to check his traffic side mirror, and fails to see or ignores the (always assumed) invisible cyclist. It is indeed terrrifying when you are halfway past the bus, and it starts to roll and edge to the left, back into the traffic lane. This presents the cyclist with a tough dilemma and no place to go but to sprint for the front of the bus, hoping the driver sees you or is slow enough into traffic before you reach the front of the bus. Also hoping a motorist behind you doesn't have the same idea--ie, failing to yield and instead choosing to race past.

When the bicycle rider is already in the right hand flow lane and the bus starts to move, the rider runs the risk of being cut off and/or side-swiped by the merging bus, or else is forced into the lefthand flow lane, a place where no rider wants to find herself.

Yet also implicit in this discussion, although usually unvoiced, is the motorists' (and society in general) perception that bicycles are toys, riders are out for recreation only, and so are not legitimate road users. A bus driver with a schedule to maintain will typically view the cyclist as an annoyance, as an illigitimate road user, and so as someone who deserves no respect as a road user. John Forrester refers to this as "cyclist inferiority".

Lately I have been wondering about exactly what instruction does the typical sixteen year old beginning driver recieve in 'driver's ed" courses in regard to dealing safely with bicycles--my guess is none. Similarly, what instruction do city bus drivers get in relation to co-mingling with bicycles on the road. Here again, my guess would be next to none.