An apparently drunk, speeding driver killed a 17-year-old boy who was crossing International Blvd. on Monday. From SFGate's coverage:
The suspect, whose name has not yet been released, was allegedly involved in multiple crashes in the area before being stopped by community members. SFGATE talked to one bystander, who said he saw the second crash.
The first crash occurred at approximately 6:30 p.m. on the 7200 block of International Boulevard, the Oakland Police Department said in an emailed news release. Two pedestrians were struck, and one, a 17-year-old Oakland resident, died at the scene. The Alameda County Coroner’s Bureau told SFGATE that it has not released the identity of the teen.
The lead photo isn't from that tragedy. It's from a tragedy avoided the prior week, thanks to the hard work and determination of guerrilla safety advocates in Oakland's San Antonio neighborhood. They installed dirt-filled tires along the street with reflective tape to prevent reckless driving. I don't know how a driver manages to hit tires wrapped in reflective tape on the sides of the lane and flip over, unless they're wasted, speeding, and/or not paying any attention. The crash is unfortunate, but at least it happened before they had a chance to kill someone.
The Oaklandside's Jose Fermoso reported about the San Antonio incident and about why neighbors took matters into their own hands. From his story:
Another neighbor called out that they’d seen drivers participating in sideshows spin out at intersections and sometimes jump onto the sidewalks, hit other cars, and even crash into homes. A different neighbor said it had happened at least three to five times a week, every week, and that it’s been going on for months, for years.
After the man stopped speaking and stepped down from the hillside, his wife told me that they had recently experienced a harrowing incident. A car participating in a sideshow drove onto their sidewalk, hitting their child’s small tricycle only moments after they’d gone inside.
And yet, this is what Oakland DOT's leader had to say about the crash in San Antonio and his agency's decision to remove the community-built safety measures. From the same Oaklandside article:
OakDOT Director Josh Rowan would later say at the community meeting that that installation could result in a huge lawsuit and could lead to the city engineers in charge of the roads losing their licenses, endangering their livelihoods.
Rowan seemed as concerned, or maybe more concerned, with the safety of reckless drivers than the innocent bystanders they threaten, maim, and kill. An aid for Councilmember Nikki Fortunato Bas expressed similar sentiments in an email to Streetsblog about the incident, calling the installations "dangerous."
But dangerous to whom?
Rowan suggested using the usual plastic to deter speeding instead, because they won't hurt the drivers or damage their cars. But that just doesn't work, as has been proved yet again in a tragedy in Philadelphia that cost a doctor her life. Rowan also trotted out the usual claims by fire departments about emergency vehicles being slowed—as if killing people in preventable car wrecks is a good trade-off for slightly faster fire truck responses (Streetsblog and other safe-streets organizations have debunked this so many times it's getting tiresome). How about instead let's ban street parking to make room for concrete-lined fire lanes everywhere?
Furthermore, the "liability" excuse and the concern for the careers of city engineers should immediately raise eyebrows. Frankly, an engineer who is more concerned about their career than innocent lives should lose their license. Either way, it's never a justification for literally doing nothing in San Antonio (or next to nothing, in the case of International) while people die.
Besides, how is it that Oakland DOT has the resources to clear away dirt-filled tires that "threaten" reckless drivers, but when the estuary channel bike path is covered in debris they can't seem to do a thing about it? What about their liability when a cyclist crashes thanks to an upturned rake or a TV set left in the bike path? (These are things I've seen with my own eyes, before I gave up trying to ride that path altogether). The double standards are galling.
