Did anyone here about the 11 people injured, 2 killed eating outside of the Parthenon today?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Older driver does not mean age caused this awful accident. And even if it somehow contributed, so many accidents are caused by young or professional drivers or inattentive drivers or fatigued drivers or drivers going out in bad weather. By your reasoning, no one should have a driver’s license.

“from 2014-2015. Drivers ages 16-17 continue to have the highest rates of crash involvement, injuries to themselves and others and deaths of others in crashes in which they are involved. Drivers age 80 and older have the highest rates of driver deaths. Drivers ages 60-69 were the safest drivers by most measures examined.” https://aaafoundation.org/rates-motor-vehicle-crashes-injuries-deaths-relation-driver-age-united-states-2014-2015/

+1

Which is why concluding that we could prevent these accidents by taking away drivers licenses of drivers over a certain age is incorrect. Not only could they choose to drive anyway (many people choose to drive without a license or on expired or suspended licenses), but it doesn't stop this from happening with a younger driver. Do you really think you can identify a magical age after which drivers are no longer competent? It doesn't exist. Some people are never competent, some people stay excellent drivers into their 90s.

What would help:

- Increasing availability of alternative forms of transportation to lower the number of drivers on the road
- Require vehicles to pass a "pedestrian safety" standard that would minimize risk to pedestrians when tragedies like this do occur (SUVs are very dangerous to pedestrians because of the way they suck bodies down and under)
- Design roads near pedestrian areas so that drivers are forced to slow down (one way roads, narrow streets, high curbs) and so there are more barriers between cars and bodies on sidewalks (curbs, trees, and other obstacles)

Steps like this will make people safer from ANY kind of user or technical error from drivers, no matter the cause. Imagine if we could protect people from young and inexperienced drivers, drivers with poor eyesight, drivers using expired licenses, drivers who don't understand traffic rules, drunk and impaired drivers... all at once. Well we can! We just have to scale the city to pedestrians instead of cars.

Agree with this sentiment. Decades of bad societal choices have led us to a world where seniors feel they must drive. But honestly, we must do better is so many regards, from car design, to bollards, to the fundamental issue that the average SUV is now a 4,000 lbs death machine than can run over most seniors and children. I think cars have a place, especially on actual highways where pedestrians aren't allowed, but we need to rethink them everywhere else.

I mean Mary Cheh got scooters speed limited in DC, why can we do that to cars when then leave the road?

+1

Highways are actually the safest roads despite the higher rates of speed, because there are no pedestrians or cyclists. But we have applied the principles of highways (especially the focus on efficiency for drivers) to streets that are shared by all kinds of users.

And SUVs as a class of car are such a race to the bottom. People buy SUVs because driving scares them (as it should) so they buy larger and larger vehicles to feel safe. And in so doing, everyone outside a vehicle gets less and less safe. Look, the safest vehicle in the world is a tank. If you could just drive a tank around, you'd never have to worry about being injured in a car accident. And you'd also totally destroy everyone you came into contact with. Is that the end goal here?

Seriously, if this guy had been driving a Nissan Sentra, there probably wouldn't have been any fatalities at all. Injuries, yes, but two people DIED. Is that really worth the comfort and perceived safety of driving an SUV?

It was a 2008 Subaru Forester. That’s a Compact SUV. Not a super large vehicle. Not tiny but not huge. I wouldn’t want to be run over by a Sentra either. Even a SmartCar can kill you. And I’m not a fan of large SUVs but this wasn’t a Tahoe. It just looked large on a sidewalk.

Well a Forester weighs 500 more pounds than a Sentra, but that’s not even the big issue. It’s profile and ground clearance. A Forester is taller with a higher ground clearance, like most SUVs. This means that if it hits a person, the person is likely to be pushed to the ground by the taller vehicle, and then rolled over. That doesn’t happen with a sedan unless the person hit is a child. Of an adult gets hit by a sedan, they will be thrown up, often up and over. Still awful, but it turns out humans do better if they are tossed up into the air than if they are rolled over. Fewer deaths, fewer catastrophic injuries.

So yes, even a “small SUV” like a Forester is more deadly than a sedan. And the Forester now is bigger than it used to be. So even deadlier.

SUVs cause more deaths, period. Sorry if this is an inconvenient fact to you.

I don’t disagree about SUVs. But these people were sitting. You seem to be discussing the physics of people who are standing.

Yup, any car that drives into a group of sitting people is going to kill them whether it is a SUV like a Honda CRV (similar size and class as the Suburu) or a Toyota Corolla.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Older driver does not mean age caused this awful accident. And even if it somehow contributed, so many accidents are caused by young or professional drivers or inattentive drivers or fatigued drivers or drivers going out in bad weather. By your reasoning, no one should have a driver’s license.

“from 2014-2015. Drivers ages 16-17 continue to have the highest rates of crash involvement, injuries to themselves and others and deaths of others in crashes in which they are involved. Drivers age 80 and older have the highest rates of driver deaths. Drivers ages 60-69 were the safest drivers by most measures examined.” https://aaafoundation.org/rates-motor-vehicle-crashes-injuries-deaths-relation-driver-age-united-states-2014-2015/

+1

Which is why concluding that we could prevent these accidents by taking away drivers licenses of drivers over a certain age is incorrect. Not only could they choose to drive anyway (many people choose to drive without a license or on expired or suspended licenses), but it doesn't stop this from happening with a younger driver. Do you really think you can identify a magical age after which drivers are no longer competent? It doesn't exist. Some people are never competent, some people stay excellent drivers into their 90s.

What would help:

- Increasing availability of alternative forms of transportation to lower the number of drivers on the road
- Require vehicles to pass a "pedestrian safety" standard that would minimize risk to pedestrians when tragedies like this do occur (SUVs are very dangerous to pedestrians because of the way they suck bodies down and under)
- Design roads near pedestrian areas so that drivers are forced to slow down (one way roads, narrow streets, high curbs) and so there are more barriers between cars and bodies on sidewalks (curbs, trees, and other obstacles)

Steps like this will make people safer from ANY kind of user or technical error from drivers, no matter the cause. Imagine if we could protect people from young and inexperienced drivers, drivers with poor eyesight, drivers using expired licenses, drivers who don't understand traffic rules, drunk and impaired drivers... all at once. Well we can! We just have to scale the city to pedestrians instead of cars.

Agree with this sentiment. Decades of bad societal choices have led us to a world where seniors feel they must drive. But honestly, we must do better is so many regards, from car design, to bollards, to the fundamental issue that the average SUV is now a 4,000 lbs death machine than can run over most seniors and children. I think cars have a place, especially on actual highways where pedestrians aren't allowed, but we need to rethink them everywhere else.

I mean Mary Cheh got scooters speed limited in DC, why can we do that to cars when then leave the road?

+1

Highways are actually the safest roads despite the higher rates of speed, because there are no pedestrians or cyclists. But we have applied the principles of highways (especially the focus on efficiency for drivers) to streets that are shared by all kinds of users.

And SUVs as a class of car are such a race to the bottom. People buy SUVs because driving scares them (as it should) so they buy larger and larger vehicles to feel safe. And in so doing, everyone outside a vehicle gets less and less safe. Look, the safest vehicle in the world is a tank. If you could just drive a tank around, you'd never have to worry about being injured in a car accident. And you'd also totally destroy everyone you came into contact with. Is that the end goal here?

Seriously, if this guy had been driving a Nissan Sentra, there probably wouldn't have been any fatalities at all. Injuries, yes, but two people DIED. Is that really worth the comfort and perceived safety of driving an SUV?

It was a 2008 Subaru Forester. That’s a Compact SUV. Not a super large vehicle. Not tiny but not huge. I wouldn’t want to be run over by a Sentra either. Even a SmartCar can kill you. And I’m not a fan of large SUVs but this wasn’t a Tahoe. It just looked large on a sidewalk.

Well a Forester weighs 500 more pounds than a Sentra, but that’s not even the big issue. It’s profile and ground clearance. A Forester is taller with a higher ground clearance, like most SUVs. This means that if it hits a person, the person is likely to be pushed to the ground by the taller vehicle, and then rolled over. That doesn’t happen with a sedan unless the person hit is a child. Of an adult gets hit by a sedan, they will be thrown up, often up and over. Still awful, but it turns out humans do better if they are tossed up into the air than if they are rolled over. Fewer deaths, fewer catastrophic injuries.

So yes, even a “small SUV” like a Forester is more deadly than a sedan. And the Forester now is bigger than it used to be. So even deadlier.

SUVs cause more deaths, period. Sorry if this is an inconvenient fact to you.

Most SUVs are built on a truck chassis. They are stiffer and higher. They also have larger wheels which can easily ride onto a sidewalk at low speed. A sedan can’t do that. An SUV is going to cause more damage in this situation than a sedan. It is basic physics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My mom is 90 and drives, one mile, to the local shopping center. She is scared to get into a taxi with a stranger.

I wish no one was permitted to drive until age 18 and under very strict conditions such as in Europe. I am a high school teacher and i cannot believe these 16 year olds are driving. They can barely read and have no concentration.

As a parent, my kids were permitted to drive at 18 and with the grades they should be getting.

Actually, it should be closer to 24 and not 18. There is a reason most insurance companies won't rent to under 21.

Do you have any idea how many ADULTS under the age of 24 actually drive as part of their job? Society wouldn't be able to function without many of these essential people being able to drive.

then it is a risk we make as a society

Great. Please be the first one to volunteer NOT to have your loved one transported in an ambulance when they have a medical emergency.

have you seen how much car insurance goes down when a person ages from teen to 24?

I am not supporting limiting drivers licenses to only above 24, but if we are limiting licenses for over 65, then we should at least compare the risks and understand that older drivers are not the only group that has a higher chance of accidents.

A young person will become a better driver with age. A senior will decline and become a worse driver with age. Getting old isn’t for the faint of heart.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Older driver does not mean age caused this awful accident. And even if it somehow contributed, so many accidents are caused by young or professional drivers or inattentive drivers or fatigued drivers or drivers going out in bad weather. By your reasoning, no one should have a driver’s license.

“from 2014-2015. Drivers ages 16-17 continue to have the highest rates of crash involvement, injuries to themselves and others and deaths of others in crashes in which they are involved. Drivers age 80 and older have the highest rates of driver deaths. Drivers ages 60-69 were the safest drivers by most measures examined.” https://aaafoundation.org/rates-motor-vehicle-crashes-injuries-deaths-relation-driver-age-united-states-2014-2015/

+1

Which is why concluding that we could prevent these accidents by taking away drivers licenses of drivers over a certain age is incorrect. Not only could they choose to drive anyway (many people choose to drive without a license or on expired or suspended licenses), but it doesn't stop this from happening with a younger driver. Do you really think you can identify a magical age after which drivers are no longer competent? It doesn't exist. Some people are never competent, some people stay excellent drivers into their 90s.

What would help:

- Increasing availability of alternative forms of transportation to lower the number of drivers on the road
- Require vehicles to pass a "pedestrian safety" standard that would minimize risk to pedestrians when tragedies like this do occur (SUVs are very dangerous to pedestrians because of the way they suck bodies down and under)
- Design roads near pedestrian areas so that drivers are forced to slow down (one way roads, narrow streets, high curbs) and so there are more barriers between cars and bodies on sidewalks (curbs, trees, and other obstacles)

Steps like this will make people safer from ANY kind of user or technical error from drivers, no matter the cause. Imagine if we could protect people from young and inexperienced drivers, drivers with poor eyesight, drivers using expired licenses, drivers who don't understand traffic rules, drunk and impaired drivers... all at once. Well we can! We just have to scale the city to pedestrians instead of cars.

Agree with this sentiment. Decades of bad societal choices have led us to a world where seniors feel they must drive. But honestly, we must do better is so many regards, from car design, to bollards, to the fundamental issue that the average SUV is now a 4,000 lbs death machine than can run over most seniors and children. I think cars have a place, especially on actual highways where pedestrians aren't allowed, but we need to rethink them everywhere else.

I mean Mary Cheh got scooters speed limited in DC, why can we do that to cars when then leave the road?

+1

Highways are actually the safest roads despite the higher rates of speed, because there are no pedestrians or cyclists. But we have applied the principles of highways (especially the focus on efficiency for drivers) to streets that are shared by all kinds of users.

And SUVs as a class of car are such a race to the bottom. People buy SUVs because driving scares them (as it should) so they buy larger and larger vehicles to feel safe. And in so doing, everyone outside a vehicle gets less and less safe. Look, the safest vehicle in the world is a tank. If you could just drive a tank around, you'd never have to worry about being injured in a car accident. And you'd also totally destroy everyone you came into contact with. Is that the end goal here?

Seriously, if this guy had been driving a Nissan Sentra, there probably wouldn't have been any fatalities at all. Injuries, yes, but two people DIED. Is that really worth the comfort and perceived safety of driving an SUV?

It was a 2008 Subaru Forester. That’s a Compact SUV. Not a super large vehicle. Not tiny but not huge. I wouldn’t want to be run over by a Sentra either. Even a SmartCar can kill you. And I’m not a fan of large SUVs but this wasn’t a Tahoe. It just looked large on a sidewalk.

Well a Forester weighs 500 more pounds than a Sentra, but that’s not even the big issue. It’s profile and ground clearance. A Forester is taller with a higher ground clearance, like most SUVs. This means that if it hits a person, the person is likely to be pushed to the ground by the taller vehicle, and then rolled over. That doesn’t happen with a sedan unless the person hit is a child. Of an adult gets hit by a sedan, they will be thrown up, often up and over. Still awful, but it turns out humans do better if they are tossed up into the air than if they are rolled over. Fewer deaths, fewer catastrophic injuries.

So yes, even a “small SUV” like a Forester is more deadly than a sedan. And the Forester now is bigger than it used to be. So even deadlier.

SUVs cause more deaths, period. Sorry if this is an inconvenient fact to you.

Most SUVs are built on a truck chassis. They are stiffer and higher. They also have larger wheels which can easily ride onto a sidewalk at low speed. A sedan can’t do that. An SUV is going to cause more damage in this situation than a sedan. It is basic physics.

Most compact SUVs are built using unibody construction, not a frame. The average curb doesn't do anything to stop an automobile.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is tragic and horrible. Why would it be funny?

95 year old MIL thought it was the big bamboozle to go into the DMV, fail the vision test 3 times, and have the clerk grant her her driver's license, anyway. Legally blind and driving. Wonderful.

Why you know she is going to hurt someone you must take away the keys every adult child is responsible for taking the keys from a relative who is unable to drive

How do you propose the adult child do that from someone who refuses? Physically assaulting someone until they are unable to resist and then stealing their possessions is a crime.

You follow the appropriate process in your state. In Maryland, you submit a letter to the MVA (it can be anonymous) and report your concerns and ask them to evaluate the driver. The person’s physician can also contact the MVA.

That might take away their license, it doesn't take away their keys. Plenty of people drive without a license.

OK, then when they get caught willfully driving without a valid license, toss them in jail. No more “oh, poor baby.”

You might want to think about this policy just a little bit.

I am the pp they were responding to, that said "That might take away their license..."
Why? Why should people who drive without a valid license not face jail time? As far as I'm concerned, they should be jailed for the rest of their lives-that will stop them from driving without a license again!

Our jails will be full of minorities that drove with out licenses.

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/06/no-drivers-license-no-job/486653/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When my father's driving became dangerous to others my mother had my brother remove the distributor cap from his car. He got pretty mad but he couldn't drive.

Sure he could. All your dad had to do is call a mechanic to tow the car to their shop, and have them fix it. He also could have just bought a new car. Maybe your dad didn’t have the money for that, but plenty of older people do.

Actually he didn't have the competence to do any of that either so it was definitely time to get him off the road.

[Anonymous]

NO ONE under 21 should be driving. NO ONE over 80 should be driving.

Check the accident records.

[Anonymous]

I haven't talked to or seen my parents in nearly 2 years. How would I stop them from driving?

[Anonymous]

Does anyone know of a service where I could call an Uber for my mother in another state? She does not use a cell phone. She is 82.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
For the love of God, can we please just take people's car keys away on their 80th birthday. Nothing funny about this, at all.

I agree … I would not let DC drive with my dad after 80 or so when his peripheral vision went.

I plan on not driving after 80 or 85 and moving somewhere where you can walk most places or get public transit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone know of a service where I could call an Uber for my mother in another state? She does not use a cell phone. She is 82.

Use a cab service. Many places have a voucher system where you can pre-pay.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone know of a service where I could call an Uber for my mother in another state? She does not use a cell phone. She is 82.

Use a cab service. Many places have a voucher system where you can pre-pay.

I wish that existed where my mom lives, but it does not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone know of a service where I could call an Uber for my mother in another state? She does not use a cell phone. She is 82.

Use a cab service. Many places have a voucher system where you can pre-pay.

I wish that existed where my mom lives, but it does not.

Uber is there, but no cab service?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is tragic and horrible. Why would it be funny?

95 year old MIL thought it was the big bamboozle to go into the DMV, fail the vision test 3 times, and have the clerk grant her her driver's license, anyway. Legally blind and driving. Wonderful.

Why you know she is going to hurt someone you must take away the keys every adult child is responsible for taking the keys from a relative who is unable to drive

How do you propose the adult child do that from someone who refuses? Physically assaulting someone until they are unable to resist and then stealing their possessions is a crime.

You follow the appropriate process in your state. In Maryland, you submit a letter to the MVA (it can be anonymous) and report your concerns and ask them to evaluate the driver. The person’s physician can also contact the MVA.

That might take away their license, it doesn't take away their keys. Plenty of people drive without a license.

OK, then when they get caught willfully driving without a valid license, toss them in jail. No more “oh, poor baby.”

You might want to think about this policy just a little bit.

I am the pp they were responding to, that said "That might take away their license..."
Why? Why should people who drive without a valid license not face jail time? As far as I'm concerned, they should be jailed for the rest of their lives-that will stop them from driving without a license again!

+1

First PP here. I agree. That scene outside the restaurant yesterday, on what should have been a beautiful peaceful Friday, was beyond horrific. People have a right to be on the sidewalk in peace, without fear of an elderly driver coming at them in a 3,000 pound machine. If you can't see that, you are the problem.

You agree that someone caught driving without a valid license should go to jail for the rest of their life?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone know of a service where I could call an Uber for my mother in another state? She does not use a cell phone. She is 82.

Use a cab service. Many places have a voucher system where you can pre-pay.

I wish that existed where my mom lives, but it does not.

Uber is there, but no cab service?

That's true where I live, too. There are a few cabs, but they mostly serve the (municipal) airport.

Ubers have been a godsend.