Posted on 08/28/2002 8:42:29 AM PDT by Kevin Kelley
In a local story with national implications, Brian Gonzales of Fort Collins will be charged with the death of one person and the injuring of three others in what I strongly suspect is an issue of pedestrians exercising their rights to walk out into a crosswalk in front of oncoming traffic. As reported in the Boulder Daily Camera....
The driver, Brian D. Gonzales of Fort Collins, was issued a summons Tuesday for careless driving resulting in death and three counts of careless driving resulting in serious bodily injury — all class 1 misdemeanor traffic offenses.I say "strongly suspect" because reports are sketchy on various aspects of the incident and it took a day and a half to issue the violations, indicating that it wasn't an open and shut case.
Regardless of how this all plays out, I've had an issue with the pedestrian crosswalks for some years now. Here in Boulder, the city has been working hard to make the city "pedestrian friendly", and in the abstract it's a nice idea.....I mean, I'm a pedestrian myself sometimes. But in practice, the new crosswalks with the flashing lights embedded in the road and large yellow signs pointing to the crossing encourage pedestrians to just press the button (which immediately starts the lights flashing) and just keep walking.
When I brought the issue up with one of the city traffic engineers last year, he told me that if I can't stop my SUV when I'm driving I should stay home. A tense conversation ensued in which I explained that the system, while being ostensibly friendly to pedestrians, was in fact endangering their lives because pedestrians have little chance against an oncoming car or truck. Giving the victims heirs the right to sue in court or prosecuting the driver did little for the dead pedestrian. With pedestrians just walking out into the road all the time, scanning for pedestrians is now a part of driving in Boulder. This of course takes away from what's happening in front of you, and there are plenty of stupid drivers around to make the whole thing a major challenge.
When I was a kid, my mother was emphatic about traffic safety. She drilled it into us that we had to be the ones responsible for making sure we didn't get hit by a car--and even still I've been hit three times in my life--twice on foot and once on a bike. I hate to go off like this when this family is surely suffering, but in so many cases here in Boulder--and this family is from Boulder--I see pedestrians literally daring traffic to stop in time and then flipping the bird or yelling at the driver. In cities all over America, pedestrian's rights groups are surely pushing for Boulder-style pedestrian crosswalks. Like so much of life in this country, the old system wasn't so bad. It worked in it's own way, and should not be "fixed" when it isn't broken. Just something to think about when the idea comes up.
On a side note, just a couple weeks ago there was a similar incident here in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. A very pregnant woman and her husband decided to dart across busy, 5-lane, downtown First Avenue in the middle of a block (not at the corner, not in a crosswalk!). She was hit and died from her injuries (the baby lived). Here's the kicker: the driver just happened to be legally drunk at the time. Therefore, he's been charged with vehicular homicide.
I don't know how drunk he was; in my opinion, that could have some bearing on the case. It would be much easier to convict him if his BAC was 0.3 than it would be if 0.081. (Iowa recently bowed to the Federal non-mandate and lowered the threshold to 0.08 BAC, rather than lose millions in highway funds.)
I recently had a ,uh, lady wearing combat boots leap in front of my motorcycle howling "Right of way, Right of way" in the People's Republic of Boulder. Stopping a motorcyle at every ped-xing is a good way to get run over.
The aforementioned Republic has recently installed ped Xing signs which illuminate with the press of a button. Passing pedestrains who are not crossing deliberately push the button to impede the flow of the "evil" SUV's. To make things worse, mountain bikers with no lights zip through the same crossings at dusk without pushing the button.
Negligence resulting in death is a class 1 misdemeanor?? Isn't that normally felony manslaughter?
Dickens was right.
My first experience with them was on vacation with my buddies driving through Kanab, Utah in 1984. We were tooling along and suddenly three girls walked in front of us and I swerved, narrowly missed them. We were like, "Holy sh*t, those girls walked RIGHT in front of us! There's no stop sign there!"
As we looked back, the girls were saying "Holy sh*t, those idiots didn't even slow down for us at a pedestrian crossing!"
"We weren't being arrogant NYers, we just had no clue! Honest, Judge!" Oh, that would have worked well in Kanab, Utah. Whew.
A guy I know was charged with manslaughter when a child ran out from between parked cars and hit the side of his car falling under the rear wheel. Impossible to avoid that. Charges were later dropped, but this case sounds like something similar happened.
Methinks you made a mis-statement. The article stated "careless driving", not "negligence". There is a legal difference.
Down here in Tampa last week, a trial judge overturned a jury's conviction of a teenager who ran a stop sign and killed a new mother. The judge's reasoning is that it was "careless driving" and the prosecutor did not prove that the action reached the legal level of "negligence".
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