rumrunn6

heard about this on the morning news over coffee. really sad.

news story titled: Man dies saving young girl in Whitman, but really he was responsible for crossing where there was no cross walk, and for the child not wearing a helmet. was he at fault? Maybe not by much. It's sounds like 1 car stopped for them and another passed without knowing they were there.
https://www1.whdh.com/


https://www.boston.com/news/local/mas...ZiI/story.html

https://www.necn.com/09/10/12/Man-str...67ef2496a5a6cf

these links don't mention what I heard - that the man was the child's mother's boyfriend.

delcrossv

What. Mr Pickemup couldn't wait a sec?

rumrunn6

I have stopped for people in front of me but the drivers behind me had no idea why I stopped. sometimes I put my hand out so they know not to pass me. in another instance I went so far as to angle my car to block anyone from passing me. that time the driver was so mad but then saw the kid he might have hit and was embarrassed. sometiems if someone is waiting on the side of the road it is best not to stop to let them cross. if you can gesture to the crosswalk where they can cross with the light, etc. you can't control other people though.

myrridin

Why should he have? According to the story a SUV (meaning it blocked his view of the man and girl) stopped in the road. The person driving the pickup simply witnesses a vehicle stopped for no apparent reason and moved around it. The problem here was clearly caused by a combination of an adult jaywalking and a curteous motorist facilitating that poor behavior. Sad story, but hardly something to persecute the driver of the pickup truck...

Chris516

This indirectly reminded me of one of the opening re-run camera shots of the 1990's cop reality program 'Worlds Wildest Police Videos', where a car stopped on the freeway but not out of traffic, got rear-ended.

Spld cyclist

Well, the problem here is that many people coming up behind a stopped car don't wonder for a second why it is stopped. If there is room to pass on the right or left, legally or not, they just do it. Often barely slowing down. I don't know what really happened in this case, but it is really easy for me to imagine that's what happened. I could be wrong, but....

I see unsafe passes so often around here that when I'm driving I rarely stop and wave someone through, or go when someone waves me through. I've driven enough in the Boston area to know it's much the same over there.

benjdm

Problem#1: Assuming the SUV is stopped without a good reason for being stopped. Negligent.
Problem#2: Preceding around SUV with enough speed to kill one person and severely injure another.

The first motorist should have hit them instead of the second?

myrridin

Sorry, but the only problem here was the adult who took a child across a road at an unsafe (and illegal) location. Considering that people are idiots, seeing someone stop for no apparent reason wouldn't be all that unusual. The rest of the comment is irrelevant since the driver of the pickup passed legally... The only illegal action was the man jaywalking with the child.

myrridin

#1 Not Negligent. The only negligence is was the adult jaywalking and the other vehicle stopping in the road (presumably before the adult started crossing). You made the assumption that the man and child started crossing before the SUV stopped, I find that unlikely. It is far more likely that the driver of the SUV saw the pair standing by the side of the road and stopped and indicated they should cross...

#2 First, it doesn't take much speed for a vehicle to kill someone. Second, there is no indication that the pickup driver was speeding...

See my comment to your #1 above, you are making assumptions that are likely faulty... You are most certainly misinterpreting what I wrote...

rumrunn6

there is a fundraiser for the families of the injured and dead.

... you are always responsible for what your car does when you are behind the wheel. especially if your vehicle kills someone. if you see someone stop for an unknown reason, use caution when passing, or maybe consider there is an unknow (valid) reason for the stopped traffic.

as with so many death related accidents more than 1 thing went wrong. here I think there are 3. 1 - adult chosoes to cross without cross walk. 2 - driver chooses to let the people cross without crosswalk, without considering what other traffic will do. and 3 - the killer didn't consider why the traffic was stopped before he passed.

and maybe 4 - the mother of the child chooses to let idiot boyfriend supervise her kid

unterhausen

none of the stories say what kind of street it was. Most residential streets don't require crossing at a crosswalk.

They did suspend the driver's license indefinitely

Spld cyclist

Do you have some knowledge of this incident that the rest of us don't have? I admitted earlier that I could be wrong, but I have seen a pattern of behavoir again and again that leads me to believe that the driver of the pickup might have failed to act with appropriate caution. I believe that drivers have the responsibility to be careful in these situations. Has anyone checked to see if there even was a crosswalk anywhere near? The address isn't listed in the articles (just the street), so it might be a little hard to establish where they were on Google Maps (but I haven't looked yet). The video in the first link looks up and down the street, but no crosswalk is visible.

It sounds like the police aren't so sure that the driver was blameless. They have suspended his license and confiscated his cell phone. You, on the other hand, are 100% sure that the driver is totally in the clear. I don't get it.

Edit: It looks like the minimum distance between any two crosswalks on Temple Street is sbout 500 feet. However, in some places it is well over 1,000 feet. So depending on location, it could have been prohibitively far to go to a crosswalk to cross the street (especially for a small child on a bike). I don't see a reason for blaming the victim here yet. Using an unsignalized crosswalk isn't necessarily much safer that crossing an old place anyway, it just makes it easier to apportion the blame.

myrridin

Can you provide a link, the most recent story I could find only says:

"Police would not say whether the driver is expected to face any charges in the accident, saying the investigation is ongoing. Police did not immediately release details on how the accident happened."

https://bostonherald.com/news/regiona...n_injures_girl

Yo Spiff

I made the error myself when driving a few weeks ago. Waited at an intersection and allowed a cyclist to cross in front of me, but the driver in the lane to my left didn't see him. Nobody got hurt this time, but I am now well aware of a hazard I could cause by trying to be polite to a fellow rider.

myrridin

Care to provide a link to that information, the latest stories I can find, indicate no such thing...

Spld cyclist

First link. Then you need to click on the video story under local news. I just edited my previous post, in case you missed that.

prathmann

On what basis do you conclude that the pass was a legal one? The picture in the OP's link clearly shows a solid double yellow line indicating a no passing zone and it appears to be a two-lane (one in each direction) residential arterial with a wide shoulder. Yes, people will frequently pass a stopped vehicle by going around it on the shoulder but that should always be done slowly and with caution - I'm not sure of the legality of it in Mass.

genec

Were they crossing at a pair of corners... from one intersection corner to another? Isn't such a location a de facto crossing point whether a crosswalk exists or not?

myrridin

First link just pointed to a opening page and I could find no links (video or otherwise) to this particular story. The second link says this "The death remains under investigation. The driver of the pickup, a 46-year-old Attleboro man, has not been charged."

myrridin

The fact that I could find no indication that the driver was being charged or ticketed... If/When such a link is provided I will change my mind. But all of the information provided indicates that the dead man is the only one to have broken the law (jaywalking)

myrridin

The stories I read indicate that crosswalks were nearby, but that they were not being used... That is jaywalking.

myrridin

Sorry, but 1000 feet is hardly 'prohibitively far'. Further, I am not blaming the victim, I am simply pointing out that given the available information he was the only one who violate the traffic regs, ie. jaywalking...

Spld cyclist

The MA driving manual says you can't cross a double yellow line to pass. It also says not to drive onto a shoulder to pass on the right. I haven't looked up the actual laws.

Here's the link to the video story: https://www1.whdh.com/news/articles/l...rl-in-whitman/

None of the stories in the OP indicate there were available crosswalks. I think the available information suggests the following: The pickup crossed a double line, which is illegal (that's a definite). The bike ended up under the center of the pickup (appears not to have been a glancing blow). I'll bet they were clear of the SUV at the time of the accident, meaning they would have been visible in time for the pickup driver to see them and stop or swerve. I believe the pickup driver could have avoided hitting them if he had been traveling at a reasonable speed and/or paying attention.

myrridin

Thanks for the link. Is it normal for a license to be confiscated before charges in MA? One of the last comments in the video made me wonder if the reason for the confiscation was because, "His license was active but not renewable due to outstanding taxes."

"They were not at a crosswalk.", third link in the OP To me that statement implied that cross-walks were available (along with the photos in another article on the subject). I will now say that the video of the accident location (the photos I saw attached to the earlier reports were clearly of a different area) would indicate that at the very least the driver violated the law by crossing the double yellow lines to pass.

The photos of that I saw attached to one of the earlier articles I read on the accident were of a four lane facility with cross walks a little ways down the road... Clearly not the same area.

Spld cyclist

I'm not sure how common it is for a license to be suspended before charges, or whether outstanding taxes would have played a part.

I didn't see the earlier pictures you mentioned. Sounds like the news crew messed up. I wish one of the outlets had mentioned a landmark or crossing street that would help us figure out exactly where this happened. I think that one of the greatest values of the A&S forum is to really understand how accidents happen and how they could have been prevented.