Reply to Sidewalk in Bethesda to keep kids and adults safe.

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

There are some excellent educational resources at this link for teaching students safe pedestrian and biking practices: https://www.saferoutespartnership.org/safe-routes-school/srts-program/basics. We can all do a lot more to work with our own kids on these safety tips, and probably more via PTAs and other school forums.[/quote]

I'll tell you what's endangering kids in my neighborhood: drivers. Drivers driving way too fast, drivers on phones, drivers disobeying the law by not stopping for pedestrians in crosswalks (note that ALL intersections are crosswalks, including intersections where there aren't painted crosswalks), drivers rolling through stop signs, drivers barely even slowing down to turn right on red.

Until that changes, "safe pedestrian and biking practices" basically boils down to: Try really, really hard to stay out of the way of drivers, so that they don't hit you.[/quote]

Well the first thing you or your kids need to do is make sure you aren't dealing with one of the drivers you described. LOOK AT THE DRIVER. I never enter the street without looking at the driver. I can't understand people who just walk into the street lost in thought. MAKE EYE CONTACT. I do this as a driver, as ell -- I look at the pedestrians and make contact. I also look at the other drivers before I go. I'm paying attention. Make sure I am -- and you can bitch all you want about how unfair it is that you HAVE to do this, but I dont get the complaining. It takes a split second. It is ingrained in me, and I am making sure it is ingrained in my kids as well.

Really not that hard and not worth complaining about something this simple.[/quote]

A Walter Johnson High School student is in the hospital with life-threatening injuries this morning because a driver broke two laws - not stopping for a stopped school bus, and not stopping for a vehicle that's stopped for a pedestrian in a crosswalk.

But sure, let's keep talking about kids' behavior and how they have to focus and behave perfectly at all times if they don't want to be killed.[/quote]

Or, we can just let kids continue to be killed until drivers change. How is that any better?

[b]Teach your children to be in charge of their own safety.[/b] It is not a benefit to think others will continue to coddle your little ducklings. They clearly won't, whether they should or not.[/quote]

Like those Kennedy HS kids standing on the sidewalk were in charge of their own safety?

As long as we make it the child's responsibility to not get killed by drivers, drivers are going to keep killing children.[/quote]

Well I will continue to teach my children to be as safe as they can be in the real world. You do what you want.[/quote]

[b]Go right ahead, it won’t keep drivers from murdering them though.[/b] [/quote]

Do you lock your doors at night or do you just count on murderers and burglars following the rules?

In addition, it is easy to say "just put in sidewalks" but sidewalks are very expensive and the truth is there a limited amount of resources. When you do have a sidewalk things can still happen as we had with the boy biking on Old Georgetown. If the sidewalks were wider and there was a wall between the traffic and the sidewalk it would be even safer so where do you stop? The fact of the matter is that people are fallible and imperfect and accidents are going to happen even with the best of preparation and intentions. I have a friend who fell down the stairs and died. It would be safe to build every home on one level but we don't because the risk is worth it to us. Everything has a cost benefit analysis attached to it. Driving is the most dangerous thing we all do every day. When there is an accident and someone in a smaller or cheaper car is killed we don't say "Every citizen has a right to a really safe car" but more people die in cars than being hit by them.  Is it worth $500 million (guess) to install sidewalks in all of MoCo when you could spend that money on repairing major roadways so there are fewer crashes or on subsidizing affordable housing for citizens? There are choices to be made.  We can't have everything. 
[/quote]

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