(no subject)

[owlectomy]

This is one of those cases that just breaks my heart.

A mother and her three kids were coming home from a long bus trip in Atlanta, made longer because they missed a transfer and had to wait over an hour for the next bus. When the bus arrived at their stop, there wasn't any crosswalk at that intersection -- the nearest crosswalk was over a quarter-mile away -- so they and the other bus riders jaywalked across the highway. They arrived at the median; the four-year-old broke away into the road, and a van driven by a drunk driver killed him.

The mother was charged with vehicular homicide and is facing up to three years in jail.

I lived in the south without a car for a couple years while I was in grad school. For a southern town, Carrboro is pretty friendly to the carless. I lived across the street from a laundromat and a Food Lion. The bus infrastructure was pretty good, even though they only ran every 30 minutes, and not at all on Sunday or after 8:30 p.m. But, to live in most places in the south, and not have a car? It's hard. And it's usually not an option to move somewhere more central or urbanized, because the houses there are far more expensive (and smaller, which is a consideration when you've got three kids).

I lived across the street from a laundromat and a Food Lion. But the street in this case was a four-lane highway. There was a cross-walk, though it was kind of an annoying detour, and it was physically impossible for me to actually cross the crosswalk before the light turned red, and then everybody would honk at me. So, mostly, I ran across the highway and took my chances.

I'm not sure how it happened. I guess it was twilight, not dark enough that the driver realized he needed to have his lights on, but too dark for me to see the car as it was coming at me. It just barely missed me. I crossed to the other side, yelling at it, and the car swung a U-turn just to come at me again and curse me out.

I remember being twelve years old and moving to my new neighborhood in Raleigh, North Carolina. A very nice new development with... no sidewalks. Nobody walks, I guess, so why would you spend any money putting sidwalks in?

Apparently if you're poor, and you spend too much money on driving a car, it's your fault. And if you're poor, and you suffer the consequences of not having a car, that's also your fault.

Comments

[deborah]

you know, from a purely utilitarian point of view, exactly who is helped by charging that mother with vehicular homicide? Certainly not her remaining kids, who will statistically be screwed up for the rest of their lives if their mother goes to jail. Society? The greater good? What civil benefit is served by charging this mother with homicide?

The fact that society has to get petty vengeance for every single death that draws their attention (while ignoring the masses of death by injustice that are happening RIGHT NOW, probably in our own towns), is one of the least attractive features of humanity.

[laughingrat]

The way we set up poor woman, especially poor mothers, for failure is just astonishing. And god help you, too, if you're in a wheelchair or need a walker, and happen to need public transport or live in an area where there are no/few crosswalks and little understanding of pedestrian rights. Apparently you'd just better stay in the house where all those well-off, able-bodied people who have cars won't have to see you, much less stop for you.

[writerjenn.livejournal.com]

There are actually intersections that have "no pedestrian" signs, which infuriates me.

[lordameth.livejournal.com]

That story about the woman and her daughters is just terrible. I cannot believe that the mother, and not the drunk driver, should be held accountable. Disgusting. If only it were a feasible option to sue the city or county or whatever for creating hazardous conditions. But I'm sure that's expensive, and unlikely to succeed.

Since moving to Hawaii, I have become (for whatever reasons) only more and more disgusted by car culture, and indeed more hateful of drivers. Here in DC, where I'm spending the summer, people love to turn all the way into the intersection, only stopping just before the crosswalk - and half the time blowing right through the crosswalk, even when there are pedestrians crossing, though they only do this when they have plenty of time and space. Even so, it really pisses me off. People really have just no respect for pedestrians. And the urban planners, traffic engineers, or whatever really don't make it any easier. Where I'm living right now for the summer, in order to catch my bus every morning, I have to cross over a very narrow, but very busy middle-of-nowhere suburban road. That whole thing about "why bother putting in sidewalks when everyone drives everywhere" applies 100% to this stupid VA neighborhood I find myself in. My tiny little street is way too tiny to bother putting in any kind of stop light or stop sign, and to some extent I understand, since there are almost never any cars coming to/from that tiny little street. But, I need to get across the the busy busy road it intersects with...

Fuck car culture. God, I hate it so much. And it's transformed our landscape in such a negative, hideous way. Not only are there no sidewalks, as you mention, but we are left with just miles and miles and miles of nothing but road and strip malls and parking lots. Where's the corner store? Where's the walkable small town downtown Main Street? Grrrrr....