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| Via NewBedfordGuide.com |
Exactly how much leeway should drivers get when they hit a person trying to cross the street?
[New Bedford Police Det. Capt. Steven] Vicente said the victim was heading west from Tedeschi’s and across Brock Avenue as she walked to her home nearby. A northbound car stopped to let her cross the street and was about to make a left turn.
A Nissan Sentra, also traveling north on Brock Avenue, passed on the inside of the first car and struck the victim as she crossed the street, according to Vicente. He said no charges have been brought and the accident remains under investigation.
“There is a good possibility the second vehicle didn’t see her crossing in front of the first vehicle,” Vicente said.
I would certainly hope the driver did not see her and still hit her anyway, but that seems to be an extremely low bar for negligently operating your one-ton gas-powered steel box.
Brock Avenue is one lane in each direction, so the driver had to swerve to try to pass the turning vehicle, and was STILL going fast enough to critically injure the 36-year-old woman. I’m not a police officer, and I’m not saying they should lock up the driver and throw away the key, but … NO charges? Nothing at all?
Cross-posted from TheGreenMiles.com
There’s a reason the English language includes the word “accident”.
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Upon rereading the description of what happened it seems that when the car in front of you stops you should not try to pass it.
I’ve noticed this too. People act not only as if they had the right to drive cars but as if they had the right to drive cars with a certain degree of recklessness.
Think of speed limits. Roads are actually engineered to support certain speeds, but the only people driving at such speeds are talking on their cellphones or texting.
This looks to be a kind of MV-pedestrian crash called a multiple-lane-threat or multi-threat crash.
In such a situation one vehicle stops for a crossing pedestrian but obscures the pedestrian from sight of operators of vehicles in the other lane.
It’s still the responsibility of motorists to anticipate this possibility, but the point is that this threat can sometimes be partially or completely eliminated by redesigning the street.
Give how irresponsibly people drive around here I am always looking for remedies that protect pedestrians by smart street design, which does not depend on anyone’s courtesy or attentiveness to make things safer.
I agree that drivers are reckless. I don’t trust crosswalks unless there is also a walk light.
I can’t count the number of times I’ve had to dodge some entitled fool who rolled over the crosswalk in case the light turned green before they had to completely stop, or people doing a right-on-red without looking to their right.
I think things were better when the lights showed red and yellow for pedestrian crossing.
Biggest problem with that is it was a localism. Those of us who came from elsewhere didn’t know what the heck it meant. The first time I encountered it (over 25 years ago now) I thought the light was broken and treated the intersection as a four-way stop (as my drivers ed training taught me).
I believe there are still places where it’s illegal to turn right on red. There are a lot of other traffic laws in force in some states, but not in others. It is your responsibility to know what the laws are in the places you drive..
Are not we told all the time that it is the violent video games that are the cause of all the trouble in America?!?!
…wouldn’t surprise me if they learned it from a GTA game.