StreetsPoll: October 6, 2016

Writing this week for Streetsblog USA, Angie Schmitt critiqued the way driver-on-pedestrian crashes are covered by the media:

Each year, motorists on American streets kill nearly 5,000 pedestrians. The loss of life is enormous — equivalent to 12 jumbo jets crashing with no survivors — but the steady drumbeat of pedestrian fatalities doesn’t register as an urgent public safety crisis. Maybe it would seem more urgent if the press covered pedestrian deaths as the preventable outcome of a broken system, instead of a series of random “accidents.”

Which form of trivializing pedestrian deaths do you find most egregious?

Which one of these do you consider the Original Sin committed by reporters covering pedestrian deaths?

Calling pedestrian fatalities "accidents," not crashes
Talking about cars, not drivers
Blaming the victim
Failure to consider street conditions






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