If you drive, you need to read this article.
This is everything, EVERYTHING, I have been trying for over a decade to tell people with driving privileges about: how underfunded public transportation, inadequate facilities, and ableist street design endangers lives. Only, because I'm a guilty of being a non-driving adult, few people pay any attention to me.
Basically, a poor, black woman with three children was just trying to cross a street to get home (where the next light was a third of a mile down the road) when a drunk driver ploughed into her and her four-year-old.
A drunk driver.
Who had priors.
Asshole is getting off with a wagged finger while the mom is facing 36 months in jail.
Yep. This is happening one state over from me.
http://www.grist.org/infrastructure/2011-07-20-when-design-kills-the-criminalization-of-walking
I just cannot stress enough how apt "the criminalization of walking" is as a title. I often feel like I'm being punished for the crime of being 31 and unable to drive by many of the following things this poor family was facing on that night.
In my city, the public transportation system is the worst I have ever seen. It runs relatively on time, but the drivers are rude, the routes are confusing, the maps are unreadable, and if you call for help, you get misinformation. I moved where I did in part because a bus was supposed to run by my house. I was told a half-truth about that. There are no sidewalks on one side of the road, meaning that I have to cross a very busy four lane street TWICE in order to get home if I walk. And I have to walk across huge swaths of lawn (which is often wet and muddy because this if Florida) in order to do even that. I have to do this in weather that is often 90 degrees or hotter with something like 150% humidity, which is very hard on a body that 1) doesn't tolerate humidity well and 2) has lived for most of its life in a dry desert climate. I've dealt with the problem of whether to run for a bus or wait another 30, 60, 90, 120 minutes for a bus in freezing snow or heat-stroke inducing temperatures.
This isn't just an issue that affects one or two poor, unfortunate people who you'll never meet. It affects huge swaths of people in every major city. And no one but us ever really thinks about this because they never have to deal with the inadequate transportation, the dangerous streets, and the non-existent facilities.
Please. Read this article and do something. In cases like this, we are actually dying.
Note: I will remove any comments that attempt to derail this topic. This includes denying that the problem exists, making excuses for the prosecutor or driver in the article above, or waxing indignant about how your magical big city has an awesome subway system and you've never, ever *oh my pearls!* heard of such a thing. This is an aspect of many disadvantaged USians lives that never gets discussed and you have a whole internet out there to not discuss it or to say that we're exaggerating. Go there.
Basically, a poor, black woman with three children was just trying to cross a street to get home (where the next light was a third of a mile down the road) when a drunk driver ploughed into her and her four-year-old.
A drunk driver.
Who had priors.
Asshole is getting off with a wagged finger while the mom is facing 36 months in jail.
Yep. This is happening one state over from me.
http://www.grist.org/infrastructure/2011-07-20-when-design-kills-the-criminalization-of-walking
I just cannot stress enough how apt "the criminalization of walking" is as a title. I often feel like I'm being punished for the crime of being 31 and unable to drive by many of the following things this poor family was facing on that night.
In my city, the public transportation system is the worst I have ever seen. It runs relatively on time, but the drivers are rude, the routes are confusing, the maps are unreadable, and if you call for help, you get misinformation. I moved where I did in part because a bus was supposed to run by my house. I was told a half-truth about that. There are no sidewalks on one side of the road, meaning that I have to cross a very busy four lane street TWICE in order to get home if I walk. And I have to walk across huge swaths of lawn (which is often wet and muddy because this if Florida) in order to do even that. I have to do this in weather that is often 90 degrees or hotter with something like 150% humidity, which is very hard on a body that 1) doesn't tolerate humidity well and 2) has lived for most of its life in a dry desert climate. I've dealt with the problem of whether to run for a bus or wait another 30, 60, 90, 120 minutes for a bus in freezing snow or heat-stroke inducing temperatures.
This isn't just an issue that affects one or two poor, unfortunate people who you'll never meet. It affects huge swaths of people in every major city. And no one but us ever really thinks about this because they never have to deal with the inadequate transportation, the dangerous streets, and the non-existent facilities.
Please. Read this article and do something. In cases like this, we are actually dying.
Note: I will remove any comments that attempt to derail this topic. This includes denying that the problem exists, making excuses for the prosecutor or driver in the article above, or waxing indignant about how your magical big city has an awesome subway system and you've never, ever *oh my pearls!* heard of such a thing. This is an aspect of many disadvantaged USians lives that never gets discussed and you have a whole internet out there to not discuss it or to say that we're exaggerating. Go there.
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