{"id":198938540,"date":"2011-04-22T12:42:20","date_gmt":"2011-04-22T12:42:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/?p=198938540"},"modified":"2011-04-22T12:42:20","modified_gmt":"2011-04-22T12:42:20","slug":"road-rights-finding-middle-ground-in-maryland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/?p=198938540","title":{"rendered":"Road Rights: Finding Middle Ground in Maryland"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By Bob Mionske<br \/>\nNathan Krasnopoler was on his way home from the Farmer\u2019s Market. At least that\u2019s what his family is thinking, because the fresh produce he was carrying was scattered along the roadway when Jeannette Walke, 83, right-hooked him on February 26. Krasnopoler, a 20 year old engineering student at Johns Hopkins University, was pinned under Walke\u2019s car and severely injured. He went into cardiac arrest on the way to the hospital, and has remained in a coma since the day of the collision. On April 9, Krasnopoler\u2019s family announced that doctors do not expect him to recover.<br \/>\nWalke was charged with negligent driving and failure to yield. This was a mixed victory for cycling advocates. For six weeks, it appeared that she might not be charged at all, despite clear evidence of several violations of the law.<br \/>\nIt wouldn\u2019t have been the first time that a driver escaped charges in Maryland. In 2009, Jack Yates was killed under the rear wheels of the truck that right-hooked him. No charges were filed. In 2010, Natasha Pettigrew was run down by a driver who continued driving home, and later reported that she thought she had hit a dog, or a deer. No charges filed.<br \/>\nSo when charges were filed against the driver who hit Nathan Krasnopoler, it was a small victory for justice\u2014but what a small victory.<br \/>\nFailure to yield? That\u2019s the best we can come up with to describe what happened? Failure to yield is what happens when a driver nearly causes a collision. It\u2019s what happens in a minor fender bender. It does not describe what happened to Nathan Krasnopoler, and neither does that negligent driving charge.<br \/>\n&#8230;<br \/>\nOne reason for this inability to distinguish between serious and minor violations is that the law reflects an unconscious assumption among legislators that the roads are for cars, and thus, that minor violations will only result in fender benders. To kill somebody in another car, it usually takes more extreme behavior, and that extreme behavior is punished under existing law.<br \/>\n&#8230;<br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/bicycling.com\/blogs\/roadrights\/2011\/04\/22\/road-rights%E2%80%94maryland\/\">https:\/\/bicycling.com\/blogs\/roadrights\/2011\/04\/22\/road-rights%E2%80%94maryland\/<\/a>oldId.20110422124220384<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Bob Mionske Nathan Krasnopoler was on his way home from the Farmer\u2019s Market. At least that\u2019s what his family is thinking, because the fresh produce he was carrying was scattered along the roadway when Jeannette Walke, 83, right-hooked him on February 26. Krasnopoler, a 20 year old engineering student at Johns Hopkins University, was &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/?p=198938540\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Road Rights: Finding Middle Ground in Maryland&#8221;<\/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":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-198938540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biking-in-maryland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198938540","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=198938540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198938540\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=198938540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=198938540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=198938540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}