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Even going 10 MPH can be deadly. A supposedly distracted mother who just dropped off her own child to Toll Middle School in Glendale hit an 11-year-old girl as she drove through a marked crosswalk yesterday morning. Vehicles going in the other direction had yielded for the children, according to TV news reports. The driver stayed at the scene and was cooperative with police. She was let go, but her Nissan Pathfinder was taken by investigators.
6th Grader Killed by SUV in Marked Crosswalk
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Begley is a raving nutball and he is dead wrong. StrokerMcgurk
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HEY LAPD: See? The real problem here is the drivers, not the people rushing to get across the crosswalk on a blinking hand. Please deal with this accordingly.
This happens all far to often in this city. People just need to pay attention.
In Los Feliz this morning on Vermont (by Fred62 and the cinema), LAPD were doing a crosswalk sting ticketing drivers who did not yield.
One was even dressed in full Tigger suit.
Just to clarify, but I'm sure you know already, but this was in Glendale, outside of the LAPD's jurisdiction, but you might be talking in general towards the stories of people getting tickets downtown for crossing against the hand. Also, the girl was hit in a marked crosswalk where there were no traffic lights. In this case, the ped always gets the right of way... well, legally. Doesn't work so well when you're the injured or dead victim--too late then.
Distracted drivers are just as dangerous as drunk drivers, if not more so because they are so much more common. She should lose her drivers license. As long as killing children with a car gets a tisk tisk and then we let the drivers back on the road, people will continue to take automobile fatalities as a casual and acceptable part of life.
How horrible.
There's a crosswalk in front of the post office on Magnolia @Whitsett that is a virtual deathtrap.
Can't tell you how many times I've had to blow the horn and wave my hand out the window to get drivers on the opposite side to stop for an elderly pedestrian.
And constant speeders on this stretch of Magnolia only exacerbate the problem.
Maybe nobody was at fault.
Maybe it was an accident.
Accident is a really fuzzy term when it comes to automobile incidents such as this. Just because something is unintentional does not make it okay.
A common excuse in past pedestrian fatalities such as this is something as simple as sun glare. If you are a driver and you can't see because of sun glare, that is not an excuse, you are responsible to see where you are going while operating potentially deadly heavy machinery. If you don't have sunglasses or a visor adequate to see what you are doing, then you should not be driving period. If you need to take your eyes off the road to reach for something in the car, then you should wait for a stop light or pull over.
I'm sure the driver feels absolutely terrible about what happened, but just because she didn't want it to happen doesn't mean she should be left off the hook. Drivers need to start being held accountable for their actions. Enough of this wrist slapping and accepting thousands of automobile fatalities every year as the status quo.
The vehicle being an SUV significantly;y increases it's deadly potential. Parents have turned protecting their own children into an arms race of bigger and bigger vehicles, despite the fact that they are more deadly to everyone else, including other's children. In a car with a lower front, pedestrians typically flip onto the hood preventing more serious trampling injuries, but an SUV is tall enough that even adults are liable to be smashed underneath. It's only a matter of time before a parent goes to pick up their kid from school and kills their own child.
Aberrant, just because it was accidental doesn't mean there wasn't negligence. Maybe not criminal in nature, but you'll have basically an impossible task in convincing me that the driver can't be faulted for the child's death.
i just have to nitpick on one thing you said, GarySe7en..."If you don't have sunglasses or a visor adequate to see what you are doing, then you should not be driving period."
you obviously have never been 4'11", driving a normal sized vehicle while the sun is way too low and in your face for a visor to help and sunglasses can only do so much. this doesn't mean i shouldn't be allowed to drive.
the key is to be EXTRA cautious when you know the driving/visibility conditions are less than ideal.
i agree the driver should not be let off the hook for this. the article says the driver appeared to be distracted. i drop off my daughter at a small, but very busy 3 way intersection in front of her school, but i always wait to make sure she crosses safely, usually with a large group of other kids. i've also tried to teach her to be VERY aware of vehicles in all directions. it's not impossible to watch to make sure the intersection is completely clear before driving through.
my heart goes out to the parents of that poor kid.
The problem is there are many situations that impair driving ability or reaction time in which very few people change their driving behavior accordingly or enough to compensate. Like the spike of traffic accidents when it finally rains in L.A., and everyone drives as though they had the same stopping distance and handling, when they most definitely do not.
In regards to sunglare again, here is a quote from a story earlier this month from Australia.
"A woman hit by two cars one as she stood at her open car door by the roadside, the other soon afterwards died by accident because both cars' drivers were blinded by the sun, a coroner has found."
A driver who's abilities have been impaired by outside circumstances or distraction, and does not change their behavior accordingly is just as dangerous as someone who drinks and drives. However when the sober reckless driver kills, it's just a little accident, and rarely receives much punishment.
I see what point you are trying to make gary.
driver's should be held responsible for your actions
I get that she will most likely go to civil court.
As far as your statement about sunglare ...
tell me you have never driven west at 5:30 and found it to be a complete bitch to see through the windshield. Are you saying everyone in the road should just park? wait til 7
I don't know what the best solution is, but the fact remains that we have people operating fast moving heavy machinery in conditions that inhabit visual perception, a recipe for road fatalities.
Perhaps there should be a conditional speed limits like there are for other types of conditions in other places, especially in areas with pedestrian crossings, since pedestrians are more difficult to see than other vehicles, and are more vulnerable. Or require use of polarized lenses in such conditions, which significantly cut down on glare compared with conventional sunglasses.
It probably isn't what happened here, but this reminds me of the cringe-worthy moments I see daily in west LA -
Scenario: pedestrians crossing a crosswalk, let's say four lanes of traffic, two in each direction.
Cars in lanes 1-3 are stopped, and some moron not paying attention in lane 4 ("gee, i wonder why three cars are stopped at that crosswalk??") flies through at a high rate of speed.
Luckily, most pedestrians are very cautious to check every single lane as they cross it, but some may not. All it takes is a little awareness to prevent many tragedies.
This whole mess is such a sad story. I get fiery about this kind of stuff because I feel these types of incidents are preventable if our culture would get it's priorities straight. We now have a grieving family and a mother who I'm sure will be guilt ridden by what she has done, and this type of story is going to run like a broken record if we don't do something about it.