Mt. Lebanon woman dies after being struck by SUV (attorney, statistics)

[Benzman66]

Originally Posted by scottrpriester

I got in to bed last night, and put my weight on my right wrist to move myself in. Damn, my hand was sore. Oh yeah, now I remember, I punched that Mercedes SUV that didn't stop for a stop sign on Kensington Street.

LOL! Not me!
I'll be in the S320 or SLK230 cars.
You have to be careful of some of those Benz drivers. Haha.
Actually, I am pretty friendly to pedestrians and other drivers, unless provoked.

[TechieTransplant]

Originally Posted by Benzman66

LOL! Not me!
I'll be in the S320 or SLK230 cars.
You have to be careful of some of those Benz drivers. Haha.
Actually, I am pretty friendly to pedestrians and other drivers, unless provoked.

You know how they have the pop out for ventilation rear quarter windows? I punched it so hard it broke the piece that allows the window to flex out. Oh well, gotta watch out for human beings. Especially those with their heart rate up.

[groar]

Originally Posted by Little Bevis

The news report also failed to say that she was texting when it all happened - but you know how television is - they only tell the part that they want you to hear.
If the problem was that bad on that stretch of road, why wait until now to fix it?

I think if more parents were more responsible and taught their children how to properly cross the road, less people would be getting hit and killed.
But I see people everyday, walking around in a trance, with their eyes glued to the phone - texting while they walk across the street and when they are walking across a parking lot - and they don't care if they get ran over - the phone is more important.

I think they ought to make a law that says that if you get ran over while texting that it is your own dumb fault and that the driver of the car shouldn't be held liable.

assuming that your assertion that she was texting is true (and i seriously doubt it is considering your posting history and the fact that you haven't given any evidence to back it up), how does that excuse the person who hit her, who definitely ran a stop sign and may have been intoxicated?

everyone on the road, walking, driving, or biking, needs to be alert and careful. but only one of those groups is wielding thousands of pounds of fast moving metal.

Originally Posted by Urban_HillBilly

Dude, I never once seen somebody blame the victim like this.

i have. a few years ago a woman i knew was hit and killed while crossing braddock with her dog, in one of the crosswalks that are on every corner across from frick park. someone actually wrote a letter to the paper saying it was her fault because she should have walked down to the corner of forbes where there's a light. maybe little bevis wrote that letter. now there are giant "yield to peds" signs with flashing lights at all of those crosswalks.

[fleetiebelle]

now there are giant "yield to peds" signs with flashing lights at all of those crosswalks.

And drivers still blow right by them.

[aveojohn]

" yeild to peds" does not give peds the right to just walk out in front of cars, jaywalk etc. You have to be defensive and even if you're right, you could be dead right.

[groar]

the signs are at crosswalks. cars are supposed to stop at crosswalks if there is a person in them. the signs are just a reminder of the law that exists for all crosswalks that don't have lights.

of course pedestrians shouldn't walk out in front of a car that doesn't have time to stop, and no one on the road should ever assume that other people are going to obey the law, but you can't jaywalk in a crosswalk unless there's a light there. and blaming a pedestrian crossing in a crosswalk for getting hit is like blaming someone in a car who gets hit by someone running a red light or a stop or yield sign. sure, if you see it coming you need to stop no matter who's right, but most motorists treat crosswalks like they're nothing unless there's a light or a stop sign, if that. i actually know someone (a 50 year old person) who until very recently thought you didn't have to stop for pedestrians in crosswalks *unless* there was a yield to peds sign.

you SHOULD be able to walk out into a crosswalk in front of a car, if that car has sufficient time to stop, just like you can drive your car in front of a car that has a yield sign. but because of the way motorists routinely break the law regarding crosswalks, you really can't. to somehow blame that situation on pedestrians is extremely disingenuous.

i do think it's interesting that we rarely see this kind of victim blaming when someone in a car is hit by someone in another car.

[robrobrob]

Originally Posted by groar

assuming that your assertion that she was texting is true (and i seriously doubt it is considering your posting history and the fact that you haven't given any evidence to back it up), how does that excuse the person who hit her, who definitely ran a stop sign and may have been intoxicated?

It doesn't excuse his behavior but it does explain why it happened. Maybe she wasn't looking and she stepped out in front of his car as he was running the stop sign. Maybe he just plowed into her because he wasn't paying attention. We don't know which scenario is true. By the way he is guily in both scenarios but the explanation of why it happened is different.

[hempfield mania]

Originally Posted by Copanut

"I am sorry that it happened. But it still wasn't my fault," said Adam J. Mains, 20, of West Elizabeth.

Mr. Mains, who has pleaded guilty six times and paid more than $1,000 in fines for traffic offenses in the past 18 months, was in court on another traffic violation today.

Doesn't have much of a leg to stand on.

He may very well be right. I travel this work zone every afternoon on my way home from work. If he was traveling the work zone speed limit (30 mph), the other car may have pulled out in front of him while he was traveling down the lane that needs to merge. There have been near misses almost daily here. But, from the damage to the cars and to the berm/curbing near Primantis, I doubt he was doing the speed limit.

The most dangerous part of this work zone is the numbnutz ignoring the HUGE "Use both lanes to the merge" sign and "Merge here, take your turn" signs and the one lane backs up for a mile while the other lane is empty or practically empty up to the merge point. If both lanes were utilized like they should and people took their turns at the merge like they should, there wouldn't be a free lane for almost a mile for people to zoom up. I use that lane to the merge but go about 15 or 20 mph so I don't Tbone someone trying to merge. Traffic would flow better and the lights upstream on 51 wouldn't get so backed up if people would use both lanes. Just like the lack of knowing how to merge on highways, it is mainly a regional thing.

There was a moron in a box truck blocking anyone from using both lanes to the merge yesterday. He saw a few birds and heard a few horns.

Back to the OT, if the driver did blow through the stop sign and was high at the time, hopefully the book gets thrown at him and he loses his driving privledges for many years and does significant jail time.

[jay5835]

Originally Posted by robrobrob

It doesn't excuse his behavior but it does explain why it happened. Maybe she wasn't looking and she stepped out in front of his car as he was running the stop sign. Maybe he just plowed into her because he wasn't paying attention. We don't know which scenario is true. By the way he is guily in both scenarios but the explanation of why it happened is different.

I just encountered a thread on Runners World's website about this accident. Apparently she was jogging with her two kids in a stroller when she was hit. Maybe she wasn't paying as much attention as she might have been, and ran right out in front of SUV Boy before he could do anything to stop.

Running with your kids in a stroller sounds like pretty risky business on what sounds like a not exactly pedestrian-friendly piece of road. (But what do I know? I never heard of nail saloons before yesterday.)

http://www.runnersworld.com/communit...gging-stroller

[BrianTH]

There is nothing inherently risky about jogging strollers, and in fact given the details of this particular accident, it appears the stroller helped the kids escape serious injury.

Generally, people keep making up scenarios in which this woman did something wrong that contributed to the accident. Since we don't have the ability to go back in time and study the incident in detail, we'll never be able to eliminate all these speculative possibilities.

But for that very reason, I don't think it makes sense to speculate like that without any basis. In other words, this seems to me like a good case in which to apply Occam's Razor: we have a simple explanation for the accident available given the known facts about the driver and the nature of the accident. So why add baseless and unnecessary speculation about how the woman might or might not have done something to contribute to the accident, particularly given that there is no way to confirm or deny such speculation? I just don't see the point.