We've definitely seen a lot more pedestrian deaths in our area in the last couple years. But it's not the prevalence or size of the cars, SUVs, trucks.
What's happening here is that there's an explosion of homeless living and walking in and around the very fast two-lane roads and one highway in particular. They are drugged out of their mind and oblivious. Just about every couple weeks there's a fatality where someone wanders into the road or crosses unsafely in the night and the car or often 18-wheeler can't see to avoid them. At highway speeds it wouldn't matter if it was a Honda, and sometimes is.
This isn't a suburban or urban area where it's people getting mowed down in the crosswalks. This is out in the desert. Just another way that fentanyl kills. Since 5 years ago, it seems to have increased almost an order of magnitude.
So as captivating as the SUV story is, at least here it's nothing to do with it. But might not be like that everywhere. But the article doesn't address this at all.
Can confirm, my one incident is a homeless guy who decided to sail down a hill on his BMX at night, wearing all black, and run a red light against my right-of-way.
He "hit me" as much as I hit him, but given I'm in a car on a freeway exit, obviously he was worse for wear.
But on the plus side, I do drive a low slung sports sedan so he got to tumble and walk away alive at least. Car was a write-off though.
If he'd been hit by a truck like the one my tenant drives (GMC Sierra 3500), the hood is about eye-level for me, and I'm 5'11, it probably would have been a lot worse.
doesn't that go for the "experts" (especially Martin) in this article, too?
while unsatisfying, the evidence that i put out is from first-hand experience and is at least better than the hand-waving correlation/causation. especially when it's easy to point to at least one obvious factor that isn't mentioned.
Well, sort of. If a professor of finance writes an article about how options work I'll trust it, but if he starts saying "historically options were used to xyz abc political thing whatever" then sure he should back up his argument.
in our area there has been a massive increase in jaywalking. Not jaywalking-per-se like just crossing out of the crosswalk.
Like, passed out lying in the road, sitting in the road, stumbling around on-and-off the sideway or shoulder dazed and oblivious, staring at the sky mumbling, wading into traffic against the lights without any care. bicycling in the traffic lanes going across or the wrong way or across flipping off and daring people to hit them. They are either completely oblivious or don't give a f@ck.
There's also been a massive increase in people driving like utter maniacs. Those would be the meth-heads that have a car.
What's happening here is that there's an explosion of homeless living and walking in and around the very fast two-lane roads and one highway in particular. They are drugged out of their mind and oblivious. Just about every couple weeks there's a fatality where someone wanders into the road or crosses unsafely in the night and the car or often 18-wheeler can't see to avoid them. At highway speeds it wouldn't matter if it was a Honda, and sometimes is.
This isn't a suburban or urban area where it's people getting mowed down in the crosswalks. This is out in the desert. Just another way that fentanyl kills. Since 5 years ago, it seems to have increased almost an order of magnitude.
So as captivating as the SUV story is, at least here it's nothing to do with it. But might not be like that everywhere. But the article doesn't address this at all.