{"id":164293961,"date":"2010-03-17T13:12:41","date_gmt":"2010-03-17T13:12:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/?p=164293961"},"modified":"2010-03-17T13:12:41","modified_gmt":"2010-03-17T13:12:41","slug":"the-usual-blaming-of-the-victim-follows-latest-pedestrian-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/?p=164293961","title":{"rendered":"The usual blaming of the victim follows latest pedestrian death"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"image\"
\nBaltimore’s “It’s the pedestrians fault” ad campaign. I don’t know about you but I feel safer crossing the streets now. :-\/<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

By John Bennett<\/p>\n

This sequence of events is becoming awfully easy to predict:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Pedestrian is killed or injured on a local street that\u2019s dangerous by design<\/a>.<\/li>\n
  2. News media coverage of the incident uncritically repeats law enforcement warnings that pedestrians should use crosswalks.<\/li>\n
  3. Readers and viewers of news media coverage  jump at the chance to share stories <\/a>about \u201cstupid\u201d pedestrians who represent \u201ca nuisance to motorists\u201d because they don\u2019t use crosswalks.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    <\/p>\n

    One interesting thing about  WTOC-TV\u2019s<\/a> coverage was the only cursory mention of a vehicle that hit the pedestrian and left the scene. Instead of exploring that important detail, the report instead spent time blaming the pedestrian for failing to use a crosswalk that does not exist. From the transcript of the broadcast:<\/p>\n

    \n

    \u201cPolice say especially when it\u2019s dark the real danger is not using a crosswalk. \u2018He was wearing dark clothing the area here is not well lit and it\u2019s not a crosswalk area. Our closest crosswalk is 400 to 500 yards down the road. You know without street lights and dark clothing that\u2019s likely the driver did not see him,\u2019 said [Garden City Police Sgt. Benji] Selph.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

    \"ogeecheDid you get that? I\u2019ll repeat it again: \u201cPolice say especially when it\u2019s dark the real danger is not using a crosswalk.\u201d Sorry, that\u2019s just not true. The real danger is the design of the street itself, which Selph helpfully describes. The crosswalks are hundreds of yards apart and the lighting is poor. And that\u2019s not even mentioning the five lanes of high speed motor vehicle traffic dissecting an urban area in which many residents depend on their feet or bicycles for daily transportation. Crosswalks or not, as long as these factors remain unchanged, people will continue to die on Ogeechee Road. I have no doubt Selph\u2019s advice to use crosswalks was issued with the best intentions. The design of the street, the true culprit in many pedestrian deaths, is beyond his jurisdiction. All he can do is respond to the carnage.<\/p>\n

    Still, when Selph and his colleagues instinctively repeat the \u201cuse crosswalks\u201d mantra, it automatically becomes part of almost every single local news story on pedestrian deaths. Thus, the pedestrian shoulders the blame, even when the closest crosswalk is five football fields away. Do we really expect normal people to walk this far out of the way to cross the street? Really? In a community where able-bodied people feel entitled to park on sidewalks<\/a> (and usually do so without attracting any attention from law enforcement agencies) in order to save a couple steps?<\/p>\n

    It appears that we do expect people who walk to endure all sorts of inconveniences we\u2019d never tolerate. And every news story that blames pedestrians for dying on streets that are dangerous by design fuels the unreasonable anger toward people who walk. It reinforces the idea that pedestrians are the problem even when they are not. And it endorses an unfortunate way of thinking about the design of our streets and the behavior of the people who use them, as described in this piece called The Taming of The Motorcar<\/a>, which was forwarded to me today by a kind Sustainable Savannah reader:<\/p>\n

    \n

    \u201cIt is felt that by training the members of the human population, buy teaching them certain tricks, like walking at \u2018green\u2019 and stopping at \u2018red,\u2019 by putting them behind fences or chains along curbs, their spirit of individuality and independence can be broken so that they will be willing to submit to the regime of the automotive beings.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

    Thankfully, that kind of thinking \u2014 while still popular among many motorists here in Savannah \u2014 was directly contradicted today  by a new United States Department of Transportation Policy Statement<\/a>. U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood described this as the end of favoring motorized transportation at the expense of non-motorized<\/a>. The key recommendations for state departments of transportation  and communities include:<\/p>\n

    \n

    \u2022    Treat walking and bicycling as equals with other transportation modes.
    \n\u2022    Ensure convenient access for people of all ages and abilities.
    \n\u2022    Go beyond minimum design standards.
    \n\u2022    Collect data on walking and biking trips.
    \n\u2022    Set a mode share target for walking and bicycling.
    \n\u2022    Protect sidewalks and shared-use paths the same way roadways are protected
    \n\u2022    Improve nonmotorized facilities during maintenance projects.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

    Following these recommendations will not only reduce pedestrian deaths and injuries, they will create healthy and vibrant communities. And that\u2019s something no amount of warning people to use crosswalks will accomplish.<\/p>\n

    https:\/\/sustainablesavannah.com\/transportation\/the-usual-blaming-of-the-victim-follows-latest-pedestrian-death\/comment-page-1\/<\/a><\/p>\n

    oldId.20100317131241749<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Baltimore’s “It’s the pedestrians fault” ad campaign. I don’t know about you but I feel safer crossing the streets now. :-\/ By John Bennett This sequence of events is becoming awfully easy to predict: Pedestrian is killed or injured on a local street that\u2019s dangerous by design. News media coverage of the incident uncritically repeats … <\/p>\n

    Continue reading “The usual blaming of the victim follows latest pedestrian death”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"1","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-164293961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biking-elsewhere"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164293961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=164293961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164293961\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=164293961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=164293961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=164293961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}