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

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

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]This is just awful. Senseless pain and death. And preventable.

[b]If we had more infrastructure for alternate modes of transport, fewer elderly people would insist on driving (so would a lot if other people who might accidentally lose control of a vehicle). The man driving this vehicle could have been on a bus, train, light rail, etc.
[/b]
If we had stricter emissions requirements for vehicles, we would have smaller, lighter cars that would cause less damage. We could also implement safety standards for cars that assess impact on pedestrisns, I stead of just evaluating how safe a car is fir the people inside it. The vehicle was a large SUV. Had it been a small sedan, there might have been fewer casualties and perhaps no one would have died. SUVs are incredibly dangerous to the human body because they suck bodies down and under the vehicle. Smaller vehicles tend to toss them up and over, which is still terrible but generally less deadly.

If our streets were designed with a focus on pedestrians, diners, shoppers, children, etc., instead of traffic, these incidents are less likely and, even if they do happen, less deadly because cars travel at lower rates of speed and pedestrian areas tend to be protected by sidewalks, trees, bike lanes, etc. Your proximity to traffic is much less.

While the man losing control of his vehicle could indeed “happen to anyone”, there are a half dozen policy choices here that contributed to these people dying. We could make other choices.[/quote]

I don't think this is true.   People get used to the freedom and convenience of driving and a buses and lightrail would not be the same.[/quote]

When you offer people enough good alternatives, they realize there is significantly more freedom in NOT driving. Think about it, what is more liberating:

(1) Buying a vehicle for 30k, paying for insurance, gas, and maintenance. Driving it yourself, dealing with traffic, other people’s poor choices, road construction, etc. Looking for and paying for parking.

(2) Buying a bus pass. Riding the bus. Sometimes having to wait for the bus or sit on a slow moving bus while the bus driver deals with traffic, road construction, traffic laws, etc. Looking at your phone or reading a book until you arrive at your destination, where you will not have to park. Spending the thousands and thousands of dollars you save on travel, education, hobbies, housing— whatever the heck you want.

Cars are not liberating. It’s the opposite— people are afraid of giving up cars because they believe they are necessary. And often the are necessary, because we’ve constructed our infrastructure with the assumption that people will all invest in individual vehicles. How is that freedom? The imposition to spend many months salary on a vehicle?[/quote]

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