{"id":36552,"date":"2023-01-24T06:45:18","date_gmt":"2023-01-24T06:45:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cjstudents.com\/?p=36552"},"modified":"2023-01-24T06:45:18","modified_gmt":"2023-01-24T06:45:18","slug":"human-road-kill-craig-medred","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cjstudents.com\/index.php\/2023\/01\/24\/human-road-kill-craig-medred\/","title":{"rendered":"Human road kill \u2013 Craig Medred"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Motonormativity, according to the team led by researcher Ian Walker, defines the \u201cunconscious biases due to cultural assumptions about the role of private cars\u201d that excuses bad driving for causing death and leads political leaders to dismiss the need to protect pedestrians and cyclists \u2013 so-called \u201cvulnerable road users\u201d \u2013 from cars and trucks.<\/a><\/p>\n

Put simply, the researchers contend that many Western societies are now conditioned to believe that the deaths of vulnerable road users are nothing more than the price that must be paid to satisfy desires for transportation systems designed to make travel by motor vehicle as fast and as easy as possible.<\/p>\n

Thus when a pedestrian is rundown on Anchorage\u2019s Abbott Road as happened in broad daylight on Saturday afternoon, and the Anchorage Police Department actually charges the driver involved in the collision \u2013 something which almost never happens in Alaska\u2019s largest city \u2013 some rush to the defend the driver.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026.There were several witnesses on the scene who stated the driver wasn\u2019t at fault,\u201d someone identifying as Tiphanie Huckstep promptly posted on the APD Facebook page<\/a> in the wake of the accident, \u201c<\/span><\/span>and the person ran out in the road in front of the vehicle in a way they believe he wasn\u2019t able to prevent the accident. \"\ud83e\udd14\"

There is no mention of how fast 22-year-old Jaden Jabaay was driving when he struck and killed 20-year-old Jasper Bowers, a veteran of the fabled Seward Mount Marathon<\/a>, but speed is always a factor in collisions that leave pedestrians dead.<\/p>\n

According to the American Automobile Association (AAA), 90 percent of people hit by a car doing 23 mph or less survive, and 75 percent survive being struck at speeds between 24 and 32 mph. After that, the odds fall fast with 50 percent survival at 42 mph, 25 percent at 50 mph and 10 percent at 58 mph or more.<\/p>\n

\u201cRisks vary significantly by age,\u201d the AAA\u2019s Foundation for Traffic Safety adds. \u201cFor example, the average risk of severe injury or death for a 70\u2010year\u2010old pedestrian struck by a car travelling at 25 mph is similar to the risk for a 30\u2010year\u2010old pedestrian struck at 35 mph.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

That didn\u2019t help Bowers.<\/p>\n

Abbott Road is a suburban thoroughfare with a posted speed limit of 45 mph, but people regularly drive the road at 55 mph or faster, and many ignore environmental conditions that can, in winter\u2019s such as this, render the 45 mph limit too fast.<\/p>\n

\u201cSafety issues have\u2026increased, with growing speeds and volumes of traffic on roads that are often icy and slick,\u201d the Municipalities 2010 Hillside District Plan warned.<\/a> The plan was full of concerns about traffic speeds and safety, but nothing happened to lessen those dangers after the plan was written.<\/p>\n

Lowering road speeds in Anchorage is unpopular, and the speed limits on city streets are rarely enforced. APD efforts to catch speeding drivers largely focus on the Seward and Glenn Highways, where pedestrian access is banned. Speeding on roads used by vulnerable road users is virtually non-existent.<\/p>\n

Politics<\/h3>\n

There are good reasons.<\/p>\n

Speeding, as the British researchers noted, \u201cis an illegal behavior practiced by most drivers that is widely indulged by the public, the media, and the justice system. The treatment of speeding and dangerous driving can be contrasted with other infringements of law that are much more socially disapproved, such as littering, graffiti, public drunkenness, or street noise, unless that noise comes from motor vehicles, of course.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut if (this) motonormativity were just the casual acceptance of illegal and antisocial behavior we would be writing (this paper) for a criminological audience; perhaps more serious is that motonormative thinking is also endemic in the medical and sustainability worlds and the surrounding policy spheres.\u00a0 It is at the root of how we address vulnerable road user injury by asking what the victims were wearing\u00a0 rather than why they were expected to mix in the first place with vehicles carrying thousands of tons more kinetic energy.\u201d<\/p>\n

This victim-blaming behavior emerged in the wake of Bowers\u2019 death, too, with one post on the APD Facebook page suggesting \u201cjaywalking,\u201d as if it were illegal for pedestrians to cross the endless number of roads in the municipality lacking crosswalks, and another claimed that Bowers shouldn\u2019t have been where he was because it was a \u201cprivate driveway.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Absolving drivers of any responsibility for killing people does not make for better drivers, and the results are written in blood.<\/p>\n

\u201cMore than 7,000 pedestrians were killed on (U.S.) roads in crashes involving a motor vehicle in 2020,\u201d according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). \u201cThat\u2019s about one death every 75 minutes.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cOne in six people who died in crashes in 2020 were pedestrians. Most pedestrian deaths occur in urban areas, on roadway locations away from intersections \u2013 where higher speeds might occur \u2013 and at night.\u201d<\/p>\n

Often, the dead are victims of both bad transportation corridor design that ignores anything but motor-vehicle traffic and bad drivers. The Governors Highway Safety Association is now reporting the pedestrian death toll rose to near 7,500 in 2021. Their preliminary data suggests \u201cdrivers struck and killed 7,485 people walking in 2021 \u2013 the most in a single year in four decades.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

The death rate, according to the association\u2019s numbers, was 20 percent above the long-term average, and the \u201cdata analysis revealed a troubling statistic: The percentage of speeding-related pedestrian deaths among children younger than 15 has more than doubled since 2018, from 5.8 percent to 11.9 percent.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Some parents have noticed.<\/p>\n

\u201cDrive Like Your Kids Live Here\u201d signs<\/a> appear to be sprouting like dandelions all over the country \u2013 and yes, even in Anchorage \u2013 but there are no indications they are slowing drivers down or making them any more attentive.<\/p>\n

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