Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People are really bad at judging whether a car came to a full stop behind the white line. A stop sign camera went in near our neighborhood and the email list was flooded with idiots posting their videos saying "see? I STOPPED", but when you watch the video they either slowed some but didn't stop or stopped after the line. That kind of "stopping" can make the difference between life and death like for this little girl.

No, I don't trust MPD or eye witnesses. It's possible that the van driver stopped but I don't think it's likely. Otherwise they would have been able to see a girl biking towards them and not started driving forward.

He might have seen her but assumed she would stop at the curb. Pedestrians only have the right of way if they're waiting at the curb or are in the intersection.

I think it's strange that people are so determined to hold the driver at fault. I'm sure this has wrecked him. But the police would have charged him if there was evidence he did anything wrong.

Put it this way. With the extremely tragic death of a five year old, they have more incentive to charge him and let the courts figure it out than not. But if there's no evidence, the DA won't even bring it to trial.

Anonymous wrote:If the police did not find fault with the driver's actions and no charges were brought, I think it's very weird that some people are in here insisting the the police report is wrong and they know better.

Accidents happen. Even tragic ones. That doesn't make the driver at fault. Wrong time, wrong place for both people.

If you really want to blame someone, blame the dad who wasn't right beside her making sure she stopped at the curb and didn't dart out into the street. I personally wouldn't but I think he is more at fault than the driver who was not charged by police.

If I have a choice between blaming the father of a dead five year old and the driver of a deadly vehicle who killed a child in the crosswalk I am going to blame the diver every time. Driving is a responsibility and I am sick of people treating it like some god-given right. If you can't operate a vehicle in a manner that allows you to NOT KILL a child in a crosswalk then you should not be driving and I think you should be arrested and thrown in jail if you kill someone. Clearly the system does not agree with me on the latter point but I am so sick of that reality. Blaming the parents does nothing because it isn't their fault- they did not choose to drive a car into a child. The driver did.

Also, if she has the right of way she isn't "darting" into the street. She legally entered a crosswalk. Darting implies she did it with no warning or in a place she should not have been. The warning to the driver is the fact that there is a crosswalk there. Pedestrians are already relegated to only being "allowed" to cross in a crosswalk and it is unconscionable that even when they DO stay in the crosswalk then can be murdered with zero repercussions to the perpetrator.

Anonymous wrote:People are really bad at judging whether a car came to a full stop behind the white line. A stop sign camera went in near our neighborhood and the email list was flooded with idiots posting their videos saying "see? I STOPPED", but when you watch the video they either slowed some but didn't stop or stopped after the line. That kind of "stopping" can make the difference between life and death like for this little girl.

No, I don't trust MPD or eye witnesses. It's possible that the van driver stopped but I don't think it's likely. Otherwise they would have been able to see a girl biking towards them and not started driving forward.

He might have seen her but assumed she would stop at the curb. Pedestrians only have the right of way if they're waiting at the curb or are in the intersection.

I think it's strange that people are so determined to hold the driver at fault. I'm sure this has wrecked him. But the police would have charged him if there was evidence he did anything wrong.

Kids do dart out into the street though. When I walk with my young kids, I hold their hand. I don't let them bike or scooter because of this very scenario.

I feel very bad for her parents but I believe it was a tragic accident and that the driver didn't do anything wrong. You need to hold your young child's hand at all times on busy roads and intersections.

People are really bad at judging whether a car came to a full stop behind the white line. A stop sign camera went in near our neighborhood and the email list was flooded with idiots posting their videos saying "see? I STOPPED", but when you watch the video they either slowed some but didn't stop or stopped after the line. That kind of "stopping" can make the difference between life and death like for this little girl.

No, I don't trust MPD or eye witnesses. It's possible that the van driver stopped but I don't think it's likely. Otherwise they would have been able to see a girl biking towards them and not started driving forward.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If the police did not find fault with the driver's actions and no charges were brought, I think it's very weird that some people are in here insisting the the police report is wrong and they know better.

Accidents happen. Even tragic ones. That doesn't make the driver at fault. Wrong time, wrong place for both people.

If you really want to blame someone, blame the dad who wasn't right beside her making sure she stopped at the curb and didn't dart out into the street. I personally wouldn't but I think he is more at fault than the driver who was not charged by police.

Yeah this is the thing. When a five year old is dead, the police aren't incentivized to go easy on possible perpetrators. There must really have been no evidence at the scene to charge him with if he didn't even get reckless driving or something more minor than manslaughter.

You might think that, but you would be wrong, when it comes to people killed by drivers (except drunk drivers).

Anonymous wrote:If the police did not find fault with the driver's actions and no charges were brought, I think it's very weird that some people are in here insisting the the police report is wrong and they know better.

Accidents happen. Even tragic ones. That doesn't make the driver at fault. Wrong time, wrong place for both people.

If you really want to blame someone, blame the dad who wasn't right beside her making sure she stopped at the curb and didn't dart out into the street. I personally wouldn't but I think he is more at fault than the driver who was not charged by police.

Yeah this is the thing. When a five year old is dead, the police aren't incentivized to go easy on possible perpetrators. There must really have been no evidence at the scene to charge him with if he didn't even get reckless driving or something more minor than manslaughter.

If the police did not find fault with the driver's actions and no charges were brought, I think it's very weird that some people are in here insisting the the police report is wrong and they know better.

Accidents happen. Even tragic ones. That doesn't make the driver at fault. Wrong time, wrong place for both people.

If you really want to blame someone, blame the dad who wasn't right beside her making sure she stopped at the curb and didn't dart out into the street. I personally wouldn't but I think he is more at fault than the driver who was not charged by police.

PS, I didn't know her, but her story haunts me. I think of her every day at every stop sign. This story permanently changed the way I drive, I ensure I fully stop and pay attention, I remind myself of her every time I feel rushed, that driving safely is more important than being late or whatever work BS is on my mind.

Her story is why I feel rage at a lot of the anti-bike posters in this forum. I do not bike whatsoever, I do not live near a metro and do not work near a metro so I 100% drive other than the 3 blocks by my house.

I deal with awful traffic on North Capitol to/from work every weekday. And I also support measures to make streets safer. I don't care if our accident statistics are technically better than other cities on average. That doesn't mean do nothing, I still think we can be better and should learn from every single case and even have emergency review of the intersection safety for every pedestrian injury.

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The driver of the van who killed Allie Hart came to a complete stop. Then he proceeded to start through the intersection and Allie came down the sidewalk and without stopping continued into the street, where she and her adult did not, in fact, have the right of way.

It is tragic beyond belief. But the driver STOPPED and then commenced to drive thru a clear crosswalk.

What speed was he going - I mean cmon - if he just started up from a complete stop this would not have resulted in death.

There are a couple of scenarios I could envisage where the driver could have truly been not at fault. These would include her traveling very fast across the crosswalk, hitting the side of the vehicle, and being caught underneath the vehicle. But we should not have to speculate. Whatever happened, the release of the full investigatory report would provide a basis for the city to make changes to road regulations that would reduce the chances of similar accidents. Why, after 15 months, do we not have a report?

Why are you, and maybe a few others (or just you) so invested in trying to cast blame on a five year old for a drivers error? It's really freaking weird

Not trying to do that at all. Just trying to imagine scenarios in which the driver would not be at fault. But that’s also not the point, which is that we shouldn’t have to imagine anything because we should have a report from MPD on the findings of their investigation.

My biggest fear raising a toddler in this city is they will be hit by a car. In not one of my worst nightmares is the driver at fault. It’s cognitive dissonance and frankly unsafe parenting if you can’t think of a single way your child may be hit by a car in this city without the driver being at 100% fault.

My kids have almost been killed on a crosswalk on multiple occasions. In all of those instances, the risk arose from a driver either not yielding to them when they were on or entering the crosswalk. There are theoretical scenarios in which they could die on a crosswalk through no fault of the driver, but that would be unusual in my experience.

Drivers in large vehicles literally cannot visualize a child below the height of the hood. If a driver is not paying attention to the periphery/sides when "fully stopped" they will not see a child that is below the hood height that has entered the intersection and is literally right in front of them.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The driver of the van who killed Allie Hart came to a complete stop. Then he proceeded to start through the intersection and Allie came down the sidewalk and without stopping continued into the street, where she and her adult did not, in fact, have the right of way.

It is tragic beyond belief. But the driver STOPPED and then commenced to drive thru a clear crosswalk.

What speed was he going - I mean cmon - if he just started up from a complete stop this would not have resulted in death.

There are a couple of scenarios I could envisage where the driver could have truly been not at fault. These would include her traveling very fast across the crosswalk, hitting the side of the vehicle, and being caught underneath the vehicle. But we should not have to speculate. Whatever happened, the release of the full investigatory report would provide a basis for the city to make changes to road regulations that would reduce the chances of similar accidents. Why, after 15 months, do we not have a report?

Because (1) the police generally don't make them public (2) in any case, police reports are about findings of legal fault, not about street design.

Police reports are absolutely not about findings of legal fault. That's the role of the courts.

Police reports are about collecting evidence at the scene.

Nope. I've looked at a ton of police investigations of fatal crashes. They're about establishing whether or not someone in the crash broke the law. Plus, the absolutely easiest thing for the police to do is to determine that the person who was killed was at fault.

This is me still waiting for criminal charges to be filed against the unnamed driver who ran over Waldon Adams AND Rhonda Whitaker by a pickup truck... over a year and a half ago... on a one-way road... in a park... on a Saturday morning when the park is full of cyclists and pedestrians using the road.

This is me still waiting for criminal charges to be filed against the unnamed driver who ran over Nina Larson with her SUV in a crosswalk after rolling through an intersection on Columbia Road in dense AdMo.

This is me still waiting for criminal charges to be filed against the unnamed driver who ran over Michael Gordon with his dump truck in a crosswalk after rolling through an intersection on Rhode Island Avenue.

This is me still waiting for criminal charges to be filed against the unnamed driver who ran through a light killing Michael Randall first and then Charles Jackson next to Minnesota Ave and Nannie Helen Burroughs Avenue NE.

Sadly, could just continue to repeat this over and over and over and over.

Get the point?

If a car is stolen and kills a well-known cycling advocate, then charges will be filed and sentencing will result in... 8.5 years in prison? For pleading down 2nd degree murder committed during a felony fleeing on busy Florida Avenue in DC?? https://dcwitness.org/bikers-family-asks-for-harsher-sentence/

If a car isn't stolen but the driver was "just running late to work so cheated by running a red light" on Constitution freaking Avenue and (by a miracle charges were even filed), then the sentence is a whooping 18-months. https://wtop.com/dc/2019/01/md-man-sentenced-in-killing-of-beloved-cyclist-near-national-mall/

Give me a break.

~40,000 people die every year on average because of traffic accidents for the last like 100 years basically in the US. 40,000 people per year.

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Why are you so obsessed with pinning murderous action on a truck driver when the police exonerated him? It's really weird.

No one wanted Allie to die. What do we do now that can make those who have survived, like her brother, safer?

Make the streets safer, which will include redesigning them so that drivers drive more slowly. And it will also include NOT complaining about bike lanes or loss of parking or anything else that will make it more inconvenient for people in a dense city to go places fast by car.

+1

+2
We need to stop designing cities around cars. We need to design them around people. Drivers are not any more important than anyone else, and they are more likely to kill people than bikes or pedestrians. Let's act like it.

Most people in this metropolitan area of 6 million people do drive cars, or ride in them if underage. We should design so that everyone stays safe and also to facilitate, not gratuitously impede, the primary purpose of cities. Community, yes, say the bike brigade. But just as importantly, commerce.

When you choke the entire city down to 1/2 lane in each direction, you're privileging the Arts On The Right-of-Way, er, Street over the economic engine that allows you to live here in the first place. Duh.

Except there isn't one street in the city that has a 1/2 lane in each direction dedicated to cars. Not. One. In fact, cars have over 96% of the public right of way. That isn't equitable at all.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Why are you so obsessed with pinning murderous action on a truck driver when the police exonerated him? It's really weird.

No one wanted Allie to die. What do we do now that can make those who have survived, like her brother, safer?

Make the streets safer, which will include redesigning them so that drivers drive more slowly. And it will also include NOT complaining about bike lanes or loss of parking or anything else that will make it more inconvenient for people in a dense city to go places fast by car.

+1

+2
We need to stop designing cities around cars. We need to design them around people. Drivers are not any more important than anyone else, and they are more likely to kill people than bikes or pedestrians. Let's act like it.

Most people in this metropolitan area of 6 million people do drive cars, or ride in them if underage. We should design so that everyone stays safe and also to facilitate, not gratuitously impede, the primary purpose of cities. Community, yes, say the bike brigade. But just as importantly, commerce.

When you choke the entire city down to 1/2 lane in each direction, you're privileging the Arts On The Right-of-Way, er, Street over the economic engine that allows you to live here in the first place. Duh.

Oh sweetie, those of us who actually live in the city would throw a huge party if suburban commuter car traffic was limited to half a lane each way. We know you would stomp your feet and tantrum about it, but you actually aren’t all that important to the city’s economy compared to the volume of people who commute in by transit. I would be so happy I could start letting my kids ride their bikes to friends houses and school, instead of driving them like I currently do, out of a very rational fear for their safety.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The driver of the van who killed Allie Hart came to a complete stop. Then he proceeded to start through the intersection and Allie came down the sidewalk and without stopping continued into the street, where she and her adult did not, in fact, have the right of way.

It is tragic beyond belief. But the driver STOPPED and then commenced to drive thru a clear crosswalk.

What speed was he going - I mean cmon - if he just started up from a complete stop this would not have resulted in death.

There are a couple of scenarios I could envisage where the driver could have truly been not at fault. These would include her traveling very fast across the crosswalk, hitting the side of the vehicle, and being caught underneath the vehicle. But we should not have to speculate. Whatever happened, the release of the full investigatory report would provide a basis for the city to make changes to road regulations that would reduce the chances of similar accidents. Why, after 15 months, do we not have a report?

Why are you, and maybe a few others (or just you) so invested in trying to cast blame on a five year old for a drivers error? It's really freaking weird

Not trying to do that at all. Just trying to imagine scenarios in which the driver would not be at fault. But that’s also not the point, which is that we shouldn’t have to imagine anything because we should have a report from MPD on the findings of their investigation.

My biggest fear raising a toddler in this city is they will be hit by a car. In not one of my worst nightmares is the driver at fault. It’s cognitive dissonance and frankly unsafe parenting if you can’t think of a single way your child may be hit by a car in this city without the driver being at 100% fault.

My kids have almost been killed on a crosswalk on multiple occasions. In all of those instances, the risk arose from a driver either not yielding to them when they were on or entering the crosswalk. There are theoretical scenarios in which they could die on a crosswalk through no fault of the driver, but that would be unusual in my experience.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The driver of the van who killed Allie Hart came to a complete stop. Then he proceeded to start through the intersection and Allie came down the sidewalk and without stopping continued into the street, where she and her adult did not, in fact, have the right of way.

It is tragic beyond belief. But the driver STOPPED and then commenced to drive thru a clear crosswalk.

What speed was he going - I mean cmon - if he just started up from a complete stop this would not have resulted in death.

There are a couple of scenarios I could envisage where the driver could have truly been not at fault. These would include her traveling very fast across the crosswalk, hitting the side of the vehicle, and being caught underneath the vehicle. But we should not have to speculate. Whatever happened, the release of the full investigatory report would provide a basis for the city to make changes to road regulations that would reduce the chances of similar accidents. Why, after 15 months, do we not have a report?

Why are you, and maybe a few others (or just you) so invested in trying to cast blame on a five year old for a drivers error? It's really freaking weird

Not trying to do that at all. Just trying to imagine scenarios in which the driver would not be at fault. But that’s also not the point, which is that we shouldn’t have to imagine anything because we should have a report from MPD on the findings of their investigation.

My biggest fear raising a toddler in this city is they will be hit by a car. In not one of my worst nightmares is the driver at fault. It’s cognitive dissonance and frankly unsafe parenting if you can’t think of a single way your child may be hit by a car in this city without the driver being at 100% fault.