Pedestrian Killed by Cable Car Last Friday
I didn’t intend for this blog to just be a place to catalog and follow-up on bicyclist and pedestrian deaths, but that seems to be what we’ve been doing a lot of lately. And if there’s so much work to be done in just trying to keep track of all the destruction, then maybe we need to stop and ask, ‘What is going on?’
This time, a cable car was involved:
A pedestrian struck by a cable car on the Powell-Mason line Wednesday morning has died, Muni officials said Thursday.
Jin Xi Yu Lin, 80, of San Francisco, was hit shortly before 6 a.m. on Mason Street near Broadway and was taken to San Francisco General Hospital, where she died.
“This is a truly tragic incident,” said Nathaniel Ford, head of the Municipal Transportation Agency, which runs Muni. “On behalf of the (agency), I would like to extend our deepest condolences to her family and friends.”
I understand that in any reasonably-sized city, accidents will happen, and people can get hurt and/or even die — but how many injuries and deaths are acceptable? At what point do we say, ‘Enough.’?
To me, the burden of keeping everyone safe must lie with the operators of heavy, motorized/mechanized machinery. Like the laws in some parts of Europe, the onus must be on the drivers of these vehicles not only to operate their vehicles safely and within the law, but also to be wary of pedestrians and cyclists and be cognizant of anything they might do that is unexpected or erratic. Drivers should be compelled by law to anticipate the behavior, even unexpected behavior, of pedestrians and bicyclists.
For instance, if a bicyclist stops paying attention momentarily and accidentally drifts out of the bicycle lane and into auto traffic, it should be the responsibility of the automobile/truck/bus/rail/train/cable car drivers, as much as is possible, to avoid hitting the bicyclist. Cars and trucks and municipal transit vehicles simply must be responsible for controlling their vehicles, which if not being operated with a single-minded attitude towards safety, quickly become killing machines, as we continue to see.
Do transit workers, like policemen and residency doctors, need shorter work shifts with more vacation time? Let’s talk about it.
Are pedestrian collision detection systems viable yet? Let’s look into it.
Are accident and death rates trending downward? Let’s study it.
Do pedestrians need more training on how to stay safe in urban environments? I’m willing to discuss anything.
We don’t know for sure what caused the accident, but we can know for sure that something like this should never happen again.
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