Originally Posted by
UniChris
It's unfortunate that you've made this false claim, as it means that something it would be nicer not to have to say, now has to be said to correct that falsehood.
This thread is about a situation where a pedestrian was seen on video crossing a major roadway in an unsafe and illegal manner in between the designated, signal protected crosswalks. Contrary to the false claim in your original posting, the collision did not occur at "an intersection"
Society has laws to prevent this type of death, and the person who violated them was not the "motorist".
You could perhaps say they were killed by the "motor vehicle" (vs its driver), but just as in the usual criticism that such a statement ignores the human element, saying so ignores who's decision actually lead to the collision.
That the motorist then fled was an illegal action, for which they can be and were charged. But they were not charged with the crash, because they are not the party who caused it.
You have also made the statement that the controlled intersections were 500 feet apart. To some people, that's a really far distance to walk to and then turn to get to a destination just in front from where he started. That's bad road design and progressive urban planners take into account "lines of desire" where people define where they should walk instead of being forced by faulty design.
Regardless, a driver with a valid licence should have been taught to expect the unexpected. I certainly remember that film footage showing little kids running into the road chasing after his ball and the motorist stopping for him. A good school would still teach that and just because these things happen, does not or should not absolve the driver from any responsibility. Because, the bottom line is, with the acceptance of the driver's licence comes the accepted responsibility of handling a deadly machine.
Have a look at vintage videos on youtube of some major cities around 1910. On major roads, we see tram cars, horse and buggies, cars on the road but also pedestrians walking all over the place. I looked but could not find any kind of pedestrian fatality statistics for that time. My guess is that fatalities jumped when pedestrians were moved off the roads and motor vehicles were allowed to go faster. Humans had been walking all over the roads for several thousand years. And now it's illegal because cars want to go fast and straight turning drivers into zombies.
It's a shame the driver was not charged with the collision. Failure to pay attention ( if that's a thing). Another indiction that bad driving is an acceptable norm.
When self-driving cars get on the road, we expect this kind of situation to reduce because where drivers don't pay attention, sensors and detectors should.