Comments

3

Protecting the non-car world will require retractable bollards. Drivers will quickly adapt or become pedestrians themselves.

As for Meat Loaf, Charles, I am shocked that you didn't quote this fine news source that says Meat Loaf was not an anti-vaxxer https://www.sorryantivaxxer.com/post/meat-loaf-74-rock-star-unvaxxed-dead-from-covid

4

@3 Can you elaborate on how retractable bollards would have prevented this?

6

The Mukilteo board should not have removed TKAM because of some hysterical parent, but because the damn thing has been taught over and over everywhere for decades and decades. There are a great many incredible books that touch on social justice and racial issues, some of them even written by non-white people, which rarely if ever see the light of day in 9th grade classrooms. If they’d just used that as justification, everything would be (or at least should be) fine. But now they look like reactionaries with no spine, operating out of fear instead of any genuine interest in a more diverse curriculum.

8

@7:

Cops have almost NEVER done anything to prevent hit-and-runs, and it's ludicrous to expect they ever will. You could put a cop in the middle of literally every intersection 24/7/365 and H&R's would still occur, because many drivers who commit the crime aren't even aware they've hit a pedestrian, whether due to impairment, distraction or general cluelessness.

10

I see pedestrians running "don't walk" signs all the time, it was probably their fault; we should require them to have licenses & insurance, and not let them on the roads.

Why do we spend all this money on sidewalks for people to still walk in the road to cross the street? Roads are for cars; pedestrians should find a tunnel or bridge if they need to get to the other side.

Also, that's a great video, thanks.

11

And of course if the hit and run driver (of color or of white) has a broken taillight or expired tabs they even have less to worry about.

15

That’s a first! I learned this morning that there exists this alternate reality where thousands of ninja police spring from the shadows and use their batgrapples to prevent vehicles from striking pedestrians.

And we’d have this crime free, hit and run free universe too if only you darn liberal kids hadn’t ruined everything!

16

@4 hbb, Since you asked, here is how Bollards protect pedestrians.

https://twitter.com/WorldBollard/status/1461425551374274567?s=20

17

Yes, Bellevue is expensive. Don't move here unless you can use a compiler.

18

No police have been defunded. Stop with this dumb bullshit please.

I would like to know why there seems to be an increase in hit-and-runs. It's not just Seattle. Charles I would love for you to somehow explore the socio-psychological causes for this in a post. I don't even know where to start.

Is it just another component of our impending societal breakdown? The pandemic seems to have exacerbated these but I can't quite put my finger on why.

19

@3: Fixed bollards work well to separate vehicular traffic from pedestrians/sidewalks/storefronts. However, they are high maintenance (and therefore cost) items. The ones in the loading zone in front of my favorite coffee shop get knocked over by backing trucks all the time. And fixed bollards are cheap. Retractable bollards are a significant maintenance expense. In addition to them just failing on their own from time to time, when they get hit and damaged, it's a major expense. Sure, they can stop a speeding truck. Once. And then it's a major check written to the bollard repair company. And this doesn't even cover vehicular damage. Which may be of no concern to pedestrian advocates. But watch how many buses don't clear a crosswalk before the light changes and figure the expense to the city to jack up and tow away a significant fraction of the Metro Transit fleet. Plus repairs.

I would, however, pay to see some scoff-law cyclists get launched in the air when one of these pops up under them trying to run a red light.

24

You are incorrectly making the assumption that you "need to buy a house with a yard".

You can:

buy a condo next to a park that has a garden - then the city or county has to mow it and take care of the flowers, so bonus for you!
lease a condo or share a house - this works best if you are sadly taking care of dogs or cats which increases your family carbon emissions quite a bit and you know it.

or 3. downsize your current lifestyle and use the savings from that and the fact you got rid of your car to afford a house with a yard.

27

@20: hilarious. I called for Alexis Texas to come twerk during work hours in my home office. that didn't happen either.

31

The only dense, white fog I worry about is the dense white fog of Republicans in Congress.

34

@32 He linked to the KOMO article that answers those questions and more.

35

Nah, SPD is overfunded, and we all know it, @33.

37

I suppose he has to obsess over something.

Without any data or evidence what so ever the resident antivax obsessive is now speculating that a hit and run that happened at 7:45 a.m YESTERDAY would some how normally be totally solved already? This must be in the alternate ninja police universe where nobody questions police misdeeds, staffing or pay and all crimes get solved in under 24 hours.

38

Nothing like citing only the one paragraph abstract of singular non-peer reviewed paywalled study by a non-credentialed source that you didn't read and that nowhere mentions pedestrian fatalities.

40

@37:

Hey, if'n teh po-po on teh telemavishun can solve murders in 42 minutes, then there's no reason teh po-po in teh realz world cain't solve a hit-and-run in 24 hours, amiright?

41

@18: Chief Adrian Diaz says Seattle Police Department has lost 325 officers during the past two years because of the protests and the defund the police movement.

That's a fact.

42

@35: Your catalytic converter is next.

45

While it's a fact that somebody said something it doesn't make what they said "a fact."

46

@45: Are you disputing Diaz's calculations? One would think if you're police chief you wouldn't make such statements lightly.

But anyhow, the cop-bigots would be expected to celebrate having fewer cops. Go figure.

Nevertheless, it is already turning around with the mayor's new initiative to hire more. Bless his heart.

47

@31: pat L for the WIN!!! Comment of the Year!

48

I guess I'm not so credulous as to blindly accept the offhand word of someone who is the one with so much to lose. And particularly resistant do so second hand with an internet crank who has a long standing low reputation.

So until the good chief cares to prove his statement with transparent data...

49

Where is Morty? Did he permanently sign off from SLOG? He must be shaking his head over all the bad press re the SPD and law enforcement agencies elsewhere throughout the divided states.

@17: Aw, yes, Bellevue, where even the tree forts are costly, eh, Swifty? Maybe if you save up you can afford a nice crow's nest.

50

@18 Brent Gumbo: I share your concerns, Brent. Waaaay too many drivers treat pedestrians at street crossings like moving targets, lately, and not just in Seattle. The political climate has become so toxic that we are in a quagmire: politics have gotten us into this escalating mess over the last four decades. So many of us have gotten politically fatigued, particularly between 2017 and 2021 during the disastrous Trump / Pence years (I know I sure have). And what is exacerbating the erosion of democracy and our system of government checks and balances is that ironically, even more politics will be required to fix the bottomless mess we're now in, economically, environmentally, physiologically, and mentally. [Our Ugly Politics' Toll on our Psyche, Michelle Goldberg, Op. Ed page, The Seattle Times, A14, Monday, January 24, 2022].

@30 blip: BINGO!!

52

https://youtu.be/0FSKTndbwVo

I like how we host the richest companies in the world buying up all our real estate to block out the horizon, supposedly hiring the smartest problem solvers money can buy to make us new pet rock apps each year,

And yet, we can't find enough tax money to house the homeless and fund and reform the police with top talent. What are we getting for this privilege but no money mo problems? What is wrong with this equation?

53

@51 One Simpleton: Your hopeless tripe is infinitely worse, lil MAGA newcomer. What part of Dumbfuckistan did you blow in from on gas fumes, Orange Turd's Cousin Eddie?

@52 Garb Garblar: What's wrong with this equation? We have too many RepubliKKKans fucking everything up.

55

@51: Think of them as fascinating insights into the mind a very disturbed, angry, and cringingly childish, woman. The poor dear.

56

@55 Very disturbed, angry, and cringingly childish describes you to a MAGA T, Elmer.
Go get a nap.


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