urbanSTL

Yeah, I live in the area and cross into the park regularly. The assumption should always be that cars won't stop at traffic lights. My heart breaks whenever I try to see old or disabled people (the School of the Blind is right there), or mothers with strollers trying to cross.

Could Kia, who is being sued because their cars are easy to steal, be held at least partially responsible for this vehicular homicide?

Assuming the car was stolen.

Saw 4 red lights run today, including someone who drove around me to run it 

^Saw it today at Lindbergh and 40. It's everywhere. And yes, south and southterer Grand need help. There's really no reason for the street to be four lanes anywhere anymore, save maybe (maybe) right at 40 and 44 where you could have extra-generous turn lanes. Other than that, the extra lanes are just invitations for bad driving. Grand and Gravois is tragic. Grand and Chippewa is trouble. There's even places where the street is officially one traffic lane each direction that really need a diet: Grand and Meramec is wide enough that I always expect someone to pass me when I'm negotiating the dogleg going south. If the entire street, from 70 to Carondelet Park, were restricted to the dimensions through the South Grand business district I think that would be a good thing.

symphonicpoet wrote: ↑

Sep 08, 2022

^Saw it today at Lindbergh and 40. It's everywhere. And yes, south and southterer Grand need help. There's really no reason for the street to be four lanes anywhere anymore, save maybe (maybe) right at 40 and 44 where you could have extra-generous turn lanes. Other than that, the extra lanes are just invitations for bad driving. Grand and Gravois is tragic. Grand and Chippewa is trouble. There's even places where the street is officially one traffic lane each direction that really need a diet: Grand and Meramec is wide enough that I always expect someone to pass me when I'm negotiating the dogleg going south. If the entire street, from 70 to Carondelet Park, were restricted to the dimensions through the South Grand business district I think that would be a good thing.

I agree that Grand could use a road diet. But to be fair, the 'dieted' stretch of Grand south of Arsenal is just as bad for aggressive driving - red light running, passing using left turn lanes, etc. A pedestrian was hit and killed in front of Jay's International earlier this year, in fact.  

Road diets will surely help a lot to mitigate the risk of another tragedy, but it's just one piece of the puzzle.

-RBB

Yes, I don't claim that a road diet would fix all the problems of S Grand north of Arsenal, but it definitely contributes to slower driving. 

^^Yeah, the dieted section still has issues. For starters, the lights are too long for the N/S traffic and too short for the E/W traffic, making it a terrible place to cross even with the diet. And there's some long stretches without lights. (Leading to the murder crosswalks at Humphrey and Connecticut.) And it takes years after you hit the beg buttons for N/S lights to change. My wife chewed me out but good after a fancy car ran into the bottom of my foot at one of those crosswalks, and so now I try to be a (marginally) more docile pedestrian. Stopped for a pedestrian there the other day. It's one of those places I worry someone will go around me and hit the pedestrian when I stop, so I try to watch for that and make it difficult or impossible as much as I am able. But I can't help stopping. Not even really sure if I should.

StreetsBlog - Three Reasons So Many Drivers Leave Pedestrians and Bicyclists to Die

https://usa.streetsblog.org/2022/09/08/ ... ts-to-die/

Every single walk I see something like this, that makes me ponder how this was even possible, how people this bad at driving are licensed and likely face no repercussions.

How does someone hit a sign that hard on the Landing, where the streets don't go anywhere and anything faster than 10mph feels like you're speeding?

Outside - What Should Happen to Drivers Who Kill Cyclists?

https://www.outsideonline.com/culture/e ... -cyclists/

eee123 wrote: ↑

Sep 12, 2022

Every single walk I see something like this, that makes me ponder how this was even possible, how people this bad at driving are licensed and likely face no repercussions.

How does someone hit a sign that hard on the Landing, where the streets don't go anywhere and anything faster than 10mph feels like you're speeding?

When I used to work in view of this intersection, the amount of cars we saw hit signs was incredible.

I grew up just around the corner from that intersection. Even 40 years ago there were lots of crashes right there where Kingshighway curves. 

Here is a link to an opinion piece I wrote for the old Suburban Journals 10 YEARS AGO about crashless car technology in work.  I thought. 

https://www.stltoday.com/suburban-journals/metro/opinion/opinion-shaper-technology-can-mean-fewer-car-crashes/article_23964c23-cf1c-5cc9-b1a2-c549ed5924eb.html

Even though car-to-car message formats have been completed and published by the US DOT and IEEE, and wifi spectrum (802.11p) had been set aside for car-to-car comms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11p  (FCC took half of it back to redistribute elsewhere since car companies weren't using it), progress on implementation has slowed to a crawl.  Trump considered it over-regulation and I don't know what Pete is doing.  

I think we're stuck forever with cars that can only work with vision and forward radar.  So no being able to pass braking data back through a line of cars on the highway.  No safe way to stop crashes in smoke or fog.  No stopping for a bike or pedestrian who jumps out from between cars, etc.  And no someday eliminating stop lights altogether so all traffic is non-stop with planned interleaving etc.  Oh well.

^interesting, thanks. We can't have nice things.

Sorry, but I just can't resist: "...and I don't know what Pete is doing." Neither does he...

Thanks, I'll see myself out.

KNOV - Mother hit while biking on St. Louis road seeks changes to improve traffic safety

https://www.kmov.com/2022/10/20/mother- ... ic-safety/

It's been actually pretty hot by city cops on 44 at Jamieson/Arsenal for better part of a year now.  Hot spotting on the highways actually works and people generally don't drive like d*cks on that stretch any longer.

StlToday - Driver flees after striking, killing pedestrian in St. Louis' Kingsway West neighborhood

https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/cri ... 6d4e0.html

2 dead, 4 injured in car crash on South Grand Thursday afternoon

https://www.ksdk.com/article/news/local ... 87960bd92f

Speeding Dodge Charger kills two innocent people in North City last night.

Should be vehicular homicide just as the S. Grand wreck but who knows in this city. No justice.

https://www.kmov.com/2022/11/06/2-dead- ... -accident/