When design kills - the criminalization of walking

Cross posted from Grist

By Sarah Goodyear -- Bad design kills people. That's right. It's not a matter of aesthetics, or of politics, or of opinion. It's a plain fact: When you design streets solely for cars, people die as a result. The underlying conditions that are responsible for those deaths are rarely or never challenged. The victims often get blamed for their own injuries or deaths.

Don't believe me? Well, let me refresh your memory about Raquel Nelson, the Atlanta-area mother who was recently convicted of vehicular homicide, second degree -- but not for anything she did behind the wheel. No, she was crossing a busy road with three children when her 4-year-old son was struck by a car and killed.

Yes, you heard that right. The mother, who was also struck and injured, was charged with vehicular homicide, second degree, in the death of her son. Meanwhile, the prosecutor dropped vehicular homicide charges against the driver -- who later admitted to having been drinking, was on painkillers, and was legally blind in one eye -- allowing him to plead guilty simply to hit-and-run. Oh, and he had previously been convicted of two hit-and-runs that occurred on the same day -- one of them on the same road where he struck the Nelson family (cont.)  [ Full article ]