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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
You're basically arguing that it's impossible for a pedestrian to be at fault in an argument, which is so silly -- do I even have to dignify that with a response? It's like arguing that people with blue eyes cannot be at fault for a traffic accident. [/quote]\

As the operator of a two ton death mobile, it is YOUR responsibility to not hit, kill nor maim anyone with your murder machine. Unfortunately the car industry has bought off our politicians to the point where the only way drivers are held accountable for the safe operation of their death mobiles is if they have been drinking.[/quote]

+1 It's almost always the driver's fault.  BUT I'd agree that if someone suddenly steps off a curb or into your path without warning there is NOTHING you can do sometimes even if you are going quite slow.  I almost nailed a guy who was walking salmon-style (wrong direction) in the bike lane looking at his phone then without any warning stepped into the car lane.  There is no separation besides a few inches of paint between the car lane and the bike lane, and he gave no indication he was about to veer off because his head was in his phone.  And I had my eye on him because I was like WTF is this guy doing, but just assumed he was going to continue his best salmon life continuing walking the wrong way in the bike lane.  If I was in my car rather than my motorcycle (which just takes up less of the width of the car lane thankfully), I would have hit him and there would've been nothing that I could've done about it.  I was going about 15mph at the time and accelerating since I had just stopped at the stop sign ~20 feet before that.  Now then again because I wasn't speeding like a maniac, even in my car, he would have survived that crash.

[/quote]

This is a nutty thread - this poor woman was killed in a stop sign controlled crosswalk.  Any car entering that crosswalk, whether a pedestrian was present or not, should be moving very slowly as they should have just come to a complete stop.

What I fully expect we are going to learn is that the driver in the luxury SUV, probably from MD, was treating the stop sign as a yield sign and only looking to the left to beat on-coming traffic and this poor woman was coming from her right.

And drivers are still required to yield to pedestrians even if the intersection is not stop sign controlled wherever there is a crosswalk which is one of the reasons the speed limit on most DC roads is now 20 MPH.

Another nutty thing in the responses - the average travel speed on DC roads is like 10MPH.  Even on major arterials off-peak the average travel speeds are usually around 15MPH.  Sure you can drive like a neanderthal/typical MD idiot but all you are doing is speeding up between congested areas and wasting gas and endangering every one else.

But hey the car commercials tell you if you buy that zippy SUV all the urban roads will be clear and there will be no pedestrians and you will be able to park wherever you want![/quote]

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