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More biased PG reporting of automobile events

http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/local/region/mercer-county-woman-dies-in-crash-705429/
Mercer County woman dies in crash A Mercer County woman died this morning when the car she was a passenger in swerved to miss a bicyclist and struck a utility pole. State police at Mercer said Jeffrey J. Benninghoff, 29, of Fredonia was traveling west on Delaware Road at 8:25 a.m. when he tried to avoid a bicyclist traveling in the same direction. His vehicle went into a spin and the passenger side struck the pole. Police said the driver and a passenger, Chandra N. Kodali, 32, of Fredonia, were trapped in the vehicle and had to be extricated by emergency responders. Ms. Chandra was pronounced dead at the scene at 9:45 a.m. by Deputy Coroner John Libonati. Mr. Benninghoff was flown by medical helicopter to St. Elizabeth Health Center in Youngstown, where he is listed in critical condition.
Here's a non-blame the bicycle, alternative rewrite of the first two sentences - because this accident could not be the cyclist's fault, so why attribute the death to the cyclist?
A Mercer County woman died this morning when the driver of the car she was in lost control of the vehicle and struck a utility pole. State police at Mercer said Jeffrey J. Benninghoff, 29, of Fredonia was traveling west on Delaware Road at 8:25 a.m. at an unknown rate of speed when he overtook a bicyclist traveling in the same direction. His vehicle went into a spin and the passenger side struck the pole. Police said the driver and a passenger, Chandra N. Kodali, 32, of Fredonia, were trapped in the vehicle and had to be extricated by emergency responders. Ms. Chandra was pronounced dead at the scene at 9:45 a.m. by Deputy Coroner John Libonati. Mr. Benninghoff was flown by medical helicopter to St. Elizabeth Health Center in Youngstown, where he is listed in critical condition.
vannever
2013-09-29 19:01:25
V's re-write is almost completely correct. I would also revise it to say "A Mercer county woman was killed when....". She didn't just happen to die. It couldn't possibly be that this idiot driver was going too fast, or not paying attention, or just sucked at driving, yeah, it had to be the cyclist. It makes me sad when a driver kills innocent individuals in these situations. A driver kills himself? Less sad.
edmonds59
2013-09-30 05:29:50
Did either car occupant have a seat belt on? Oh, from the KDKA coverage, we have this: Kodali was partially ejected from the vehicle... And judging from the photo, showing the extent of damage, that car had to moving at a high rate of speed. I would be curious to hear the cyclist's account of this.
stuinmccandless
2013-09-30 06:31:53
It sure does read as if the cyclist shouldn't be there at all. I would guess from looking at that picture the car was driving wildly fast. Last I checked motor vehicle drivers are supposed to have control and be able to stop if needed. Does that look like the driver was in control of their vehicle? Hope they do a followup that tells the real story, but probably not. Most would like to just blame some cyclist, so it makes it easier.
gg
2013-09-30 08:00:08
From StreetView, the speed limit there is 55. It's a two-lane country road, not in the best of shape, straight with a few hills, with driveways to farms. Exactly typical of the roads north of Pittsburgh, the kind I can remember riding on a randonnée, and getting passed by cars going 70 or more.
jonawebb
2013-09-30 08:49:48
I'm just glad he didn't kill the cyclist.
mick
2013-09-30 15:36:47
Can we please show a little more compassion here? Someone lost their life and another person is in critical condition. How about we put aside our (extreme and, most often, excessive) biases for a few minutes while we show a little respect. Regardless of what actually happened (and speculating on that on a message board is not exactly productive), everyone makes mistakes and now is probably not the proper time to be so aggressive about it. I'm not saying it's wrong to blame the driver or wrong to say that the person riding a bike was not at fault. We don't know what happened so how about we cool it and think of those who were injured. This is part of the problem. Not the solution. Why is that so hard to see?
chrispissingrivers
2013-09-30 15:46:28
@cpr ++
jonawebb
2013-09-30 15:59:44
Disagree cpr... being critical of a newspaper article suggesting blame @ random cyclist who may or may not be involved in the accident in no way shows a lack of compassion. Any life is valuable, be it behind a wheel or sitting on a saddle. Dangerous driving ends lives, some more vulnerable than others.
headloss
2013-09-30 16:37:58
The sounds to me like it could be a good letter to the editor, if extra effort is given to be compassionate to those injured and deceased. Would one of you be willing to write it?
scott
2013-09-30 16:50:03
What Drewbacca said. The original post was about the article author as much as blaming the cyclist for the crash. Also, my previous statement has nothing to do with a cycling bias. I stand behind that earlier statement as a driver myself. I am very sad for the innocent passenger killed, her friends, and family.
edmonds59
2013-09-30 17:04:17
Compassion is wasted on nonextant-beings The person in critical condition, unless we here some crazy extenuating circumstances, essentially killed a lady People passing a bicycle safely don't end up in wrecks with stationary objects
sgtjonson
2013-09-30 17:15:26
Pierce wrote:People passing a bicycle safely don’t end up in wrecks with stationary objects
That. Even if the cyclist was totally in the wrong -laying in the road for instance- how does this happen? If the trolls commenting on the news site can insist that 'bikes dont belong on the road', why cant we insist that cars be driven vigilantly.
marko82
2013-09-30 17:37:16
Also, FWIW, I was a dumb kid that drove recklessly may times... I endangered both people on the road as well as my passengers. I'm not proud of this and I'm thankful that no harm ever came to anyone (but, there were some close calls). If it were me, I'd fully expect and appreciate (albeit, not at the present time) that people hold me accountable for my driving behavior. That's not to say that I'm placing blame on the driver... not at all, as I just stated, I've been there and it could have been me. I emphasize. Of course I wish the driver of the car a full recovery... he'll never recover from the responsibility of costing a friend her life and I'd hate to live with that; I can't imagine living with such guilt. That is, if he recovers! For the sake of his family, I hope he does and I hope he can find a way to make this tragedy a positive (as much as is possible, all things considered). I feel for the family of the girl, whose life was ended prematurely, a death that could have been prevented. Both families have my deepest sympathy but I don't see why I need to share that here in light of this discussion. I do feel it, so it doesn't hurt to say it. The take home is that we (as in, those reading the original article) need to all step back and question our own behavior and how it may endanger others instead of finding a scape goat (sun in the eyes, ice, other drivers, cyclists, wildlife, etc.). It's called driving-for-conditions... granted, I don't have enough info to know whether the driver in question was or was not. Perhaps some of us have jumped the gun to assume he was speeding... even at the speed limit, the results could have been the same. The cyclist could very well share some of the responsibility, we don't know, but it was in extremely poor taste of the newspaper author to make that assumption without any facts to support such a position (poor editing if it was an honest mistake). It is a touchy subject and while a private letter to the editor would be easy enough... it would be very hard to find the best wording for a public version to get the point across in light of a loss of life.
headloss
2013-09-30 18:05:11
The point is that it doesn't do anyone any good to just go straight to the negative when a tragedy happens. Do to others what you would want them to do to you. When stuff like this happens we just need to step back a bit. There's more important things to consider in the wake of a tragedy than putting on your Super Biker cape and spewing negativity. I read this message board from time to time and everything about bikes just gets taken way too seriously (in a bad way). Believe it or not, some people ride a bike because they thoroughly enjoy riding and it sucks when that joy gets ruined by reading stuff like what is on here a lot of the time. No one is better than anyone else because they pedal a bike sometimes.
chrispissingrivers
2013-09-30 19:50:04
That is a strange conclusion to arrive at based on the original point of the post. That's really all I can say at this point.
edmonds59
2013-09-30 22:13:14
There's a few reasons why media bias matters, and unfortunately the only time to describe it is when it occurs. Media has a major influence over the framework of public discourse. Media misreporting feeds misunderstanding and reinforces malformed perceptions. It is legitimate to identify mis-representation. I would point out that two cities in India just banned bicycles from roadways to reduce delays that car drivers were experiencing. Let a few PG articles go by that explain tragic deaths by hanging it on the presence of a bicyclist on a public road, and you'll see calls to remove bicyclists from public roads. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-24237390 http://www.ibtimes.com/no-ticket-ride-kolkata-india-bans-bicycles-reduce-traffic-congestion-terror-threats-1412820
vannever
2013-09-30 23:02:05
edmonds59 wrote:That is a strange conclusion to arrive at based on the original point of the post. That’s really all I can say at this point.
+1 super-bikers like us just don't understand?
headloss
2013-09-30 23:05:20
Scott, I will write a personal, not-for-publication letter to the editor. The object will be raising awareness for the next time and building a good relationship. There's no way that I'd want this discussion in the L2Ed or oped page, where a grieving relative of any participant might encounter it. I'll cc:BikePgh on the letter. Also, note that the article has no byline so it was probably written by a junior weekend stringer. Cheers, V.
vannever
2013-09-30 23:08:02
Drewbacca wrote:Disagree cpr… being critical of a newspaper article suggesting blame @ random cyclist who may or may not be involved in the accident in no way shows a lack of compassion. Any life is valuable, be it behind a wheel or sitting on a saddle. Dangerous driving ends lives, some more vulnerable than others.
+1
mikhail
2013-10-01 11:58:37
chrispissingrivers wrote:The point is that it doesn’t do anyone any good to just go straight to the negative when a tragedy happens.
But it's OK to write an newspaper article in this style. It's OK to mention in every article that bicyclist wears (or not) a helmet. This is a pure positive style... yeah, right.
mikhail
2013-10-01 12:25:09
Here's the thing. The reporter probably got his info from the police report. The police got their info from the driver. The driver said he swerved to avoid a cyclist. Now, I'm sure the police hear "I swerved to avoid a deer" every time they find a driver off the road. This is just another version of the same thing. Maybe there was a cyclist, maybe the driver got distracted while reading comments on the PG web site. Who knows. But is the reporter supposed to not report the driver's claim about the deer, er cyclist, or are they supposed to add some opinion of their own ("traveling at an unknown rate of speed")? I don't think so. Maybe the police should have been more skeptical -- but in the aftermath of an accident are they supposed to get the story the driver gave (with no one to contradict them) or are they supposed to try to get them to change it? I think, ultimately, it falls to the people reading the story to recognize that a briefly reported item like this might not be totally accurate (the only real chance of getting closer to the truth is if there is an accident investigation, which probably is in progress as a matter of fact, which could determine the driver's speed, among other things), or might even be based on a lie by the driver -- there's no way to tell -- and to take it with a grain of salt. And to be sorry that someone died.
jonawebb
2013-10-01 12:38:00
@jona, they should be aware of the implications of the story as written... the article passes blame onto a cyclist, intentional or not. It could have been worded much better, and I'm not usually one to get my panties in a bunch over this sort of thing. Likewise, this comment could have been much better worded. :) Whatever the case, the cyclist is irrelevant to the story at this point until more information/investigation.
headloss
2013-10-01 14:57:48
Drivers kill 34,000 people every year in the US. That is a 9/11 almost every month--and many if not most of these killings are preventable. But the people of this country are suffering from what I can best describe as a mass delusion that these 34,000 killings every year are just unavoidable acts of nature. Part of this delusion is baked into the language with which we speak about these atrocities--a car ran over someone; an SUV crashed into someone else, and almost never is this framed in a way that implies any responsibility by the vehicle operator--unless drugs are alcohol are involved. 34,000 people = full-capacity 747 crashing every single week, every year, and killing everyone on-board, every time. Can you even imagine the hysteria that would engulf this country if that were to happen? Think the articles reporting on each crash would absolve each pilot in the same way? This isn't about bikes. This is about fighting in any way possible the complete and utter insanity that has taken over our society.
joanne
2013-10-01 18:20:01
Most of are deaths are from preventable causes. A plant based diet and some exercise would eliminate a lot of these:
sgtjonson
2013-10-01 18:39:33
In fact, California has just banned bicycles and people on a state park's roads so that cars can proceed without having to slow down.
vannever
2013-10-02 06:03:43
Vannevar wrote:In fact, California has just banned bicycles and people on a state park’s roads so that cars can proceed without having to slow down.
That's not really a fair interpretation, it's a small park and more of the type you ride-through than ride around inside of. The rangers just rerouted bike traffic in order to create a safer environment for everyone... I have no problem with this. Torrey Pines is a beautiful park btw, and one of the best views near SanDiego.
headloss
2013-10-02 12:16:51
Speed limit 15 MPH? That should be as safe as any city or suburban street. Even safer because that's a lower speed limit than most places (I recall seeing a speed limit sign downtown that was 35 mph). It should be as safe as any school zone. If this street is dangerous then it's likely because the drivers are going much faster than the posted 15mph.
kordite
2013-10-02 13:22:24
Kordite wrote:Speed limit 15 MPH? That should be as safe as any city or suburban street.
sure, if people maintained that speed... that goes for both bicycles and cars.
Kordite wrote:If this street is dangerous then it’s likely because the drivers are going much faster than the posted 15mph.
In fairness, I think the use of the road by pedestrians is more of a problem than cyclists and the obvious solution is to widen the road and add a designated walk-way.
headloss
2013-10-02 14:59:29
The people are the problem, and we can't slow down the cars. Ban the people. I just can't support that. On an interstate, or a limited access highway, certainly. In a park? Anyway, my reason for raising it is: if we tolerate sloppy reporting and misrepresentation, it's not completely crazy to suggest that we'll see bicycles restricted on public roadways.
vannever
2013-10-02 21:54:24
where does the road go? to a parking lot in the middle of the park. It doesn't look like any kind of thruway. The people inconvenienced by not being able to walk here are probably the same people who are driving up the road. Everyone looses. The "reasonable alternative" looks like a 5 lane divided highway.
benzo
2013-10-03 08:00:48
You guys really just don't get it.
chrispissingrivers
2013-10-07 21:43:33
chrispissingrivers wrote:You guys really just don’t get it.
Do you have that tattooed on your arm somewhere?
headloss
2013-10-07 22:06:40
That doesn't make any sense.
chrispissingrivers
2013-10-08 06:48:03
Yeah, you're right.
chrispissingrivers
2013-10-08 14:01:22
I'm with Chris. Come on now so many board regulars... look it's galling to be blamed when there's nothing known and the scene only points to the driver. There is a need to point out bias when reporting on a tragedy, but as Vannevar pointed out, that need is unfortunate. It sounds like that was done respectfully and discreetly. We should call it done. Some of the tone here is reflective of a serious empathy deficit. We need to take a step back and re-examine how we've lost that.
byogman
2013-10-08 14:18:38
byogman wrote:I’m with Chris.
You're pissing rivers now, too? Sorry, it's hard to take Chris' name seriously. From my perspective, Chris is implying that this entire thread is somehow in error and that we shouldn't be discussing this issue. I'll agree in so far as a few comments are a bit jaded, but I don't think they devalue the lives lost in any way. I wonder if any more details from the accident have come to light since this thread was started?
headloss
2013-10-08 15:22:18
I didn't read that he objected to the existence of the thread, but the tone in it. I happen to agree with him. We should be guided in speech as well as action by what we care about, yes, but also a sense of proportion, and compassion, both for the driver (whatever the facts, who deserves the death penalty?), and for those who've lost someone they knew and loved.
byogman
2013-10-08 15:43:47
I don't care about what most of this thread is about. The important thing is that human life was marginalized and the way it was discussed here was so detached or misguided that it was upsetting. And who's name can you take seriously on here? Certainly not half of the people who post on this thing. Let's get real.
chrispissingrivers
2013-10-08 16:03:35
chrispissingrivers wrote:I don’t care about what most of this thread is about.
Perhaps that's it. The thread is about poor journalism and misrepresentation of an event. Of course the event itself is upsetting. Not the point.
edmonds59
2013-10-08 16:20:27
chrispissingrivers wrote:I don’t care about what most of this thread is about. The important thing is that human life was marginalized and the way it was discussed here was so detached or misguided that it was upsetting.
That's your opinion. Frankly, I think it is important to remind everyone as you did, that a life was lost and we should treat that life with respect. The difference in opinion, is that I feel that we have been respectful, to some extent because of your nudge, while you don't think we were respectful enough! So, you made your point, you expect everyone to bend over backwards in order to meet your personal expectations? As for the name thing, it just strikes me as a name chosen by someone who is here to intentionally pick fights, my apologies if I am mistaken.
headloss
2013-10-08 16:51:53
"The important thing is that human life was marginalized" It's far more marginalizing to me to look at a preventable death and place blame on passing a cyclist. I get passed by hundreds of people a day and nobody has ever been killed because it. As with the majority of accidents, the actual cause is never reported on, never investigated, and the cycle continues ad nauseum. She probably died from some sort of blunt force trauma or head injury; an injury sustained at a high rate of speed when a car lost control. Why was the guy going fast? Why did he loose control? Will we ever know? I doubt it.
sgtjonson
2013-10-08 17:03:05
it sucks that someone died, and it sucks more that cars kill someone every 15 minutes in the US alone and most people don't bat an eyelash - or even get defensive if you bring it up. But, I'm with Pierce, it's reprehensible for this writer to implicate the cyclist. Think about what it's like for them to have to read this in the paper and be made to feel guilty for no reason. And, it's part of a pervasive pattern of not holding drivers accountable for the carnage they cause, which helps ensure nothing will change and all these deaths are in vain.
salty
2013-10-08 20:20:41
This is ridiculous. I'm done.
chrispissingrivers
2013-10-08 22:30:21
What I really don't get is what exactly do you expect? Should we all wear hair shirts, sackcloth and ashes? Pilgrimage on our knees to the site of the unfortunate event? There are 3 or 4 similar incidents on the news every night. I am sad and upset at every one. Fortunately the vast majority do not involve cyclists in any way. Also the vast majority are due to driver error. And preventable. So if anyone is interested in stopping the death, rather than simply wringing hands, responsible journalists need to place the cause where it belongs - driver error (desperately trying to keep myself from going all caps).
edmonds59
2013-10-09 06:21:03
chrispissingrivers wrote:This is ridiculous. I’m done.
I just repeat: You really just don’t get it.
mikhail
2013-10-09 07:53:54
Pierce wrote:“The important thing is that human life was marginalized” It’s far more marginalizing to me to look at a preventable death and place blame on passing a cyclist.
With respect, but it's ridiculous compare our feelings here to the feelings of someone who's lost somebody. We're annoyed, they're in mourning. This lack of perspective and proportion, and itching desire to sound off comes off really juvenile and jerky. And not waiting till the facts are known doesn't help matters. And implicating the driver, while it makes most sense based on what little is known, is still foolish until more facts come out, and again jerky. Think about Val's speculation that the pedestrian hit multiple times from both directions wasn't looking when crossing. More facts came out that (that the pedestrian was in the freaking crosswalk) made that look exceptionally foolish, and cars drivers are supposed to be the responsible ones in car/ped encounters but when you get down to it, but what made it really awful was the same thing as we're doing here, blaming a dead person. Just let it be until the facts do come out. Again, Vannevar did the productive thing, that's all there was to do.
byogman
2013-10-09 10:17:01
And not waiting till the facts are known doesn’t help matters. And implicating the driver, while it makes most sense based on what little is known, is still foolish until more facts come out, and again jerky.
This. I'd humbly suggest that those covering such events (whether reporters or 'Net commentariat) refrain from selectively adding information in order to insinuate fault. Adding observably factual statements like "cyclist wasn't wearing a helmet" or "driver was elderly" is bad enough...adding comments like "it is unknown if the motorist was sober" or "it is unknown if the cyclist was riding legally" is downright dishonest IMO, even though the statements themselves are technically true.
reddan
2013-10-09 10:34:15
In regards to facts, I would like to point out that at least one newspaper article stated that the wreck occurred when the driver swerved to avoid a cyclists riding on the side of the road per the police. I'm not going to go back digging for that article, but it should be noted that the article I'm referring to was either mistaken, or was the only one out of a half dozen to make it clear that the cyclist wasn't in the middle of the road or anything along those lines. Some of the reports, not the one in the OP, made it sound even more like the cyclist was the cause of the whole mess... so much so that I question if sensationalism was intentional. It's reasonable to question these things. It's not disrespectful towards the life lost or the injured driver to question these things. I agree with others that there is too little information to start pointing fingers at the driver and implying that he was being reckless and I think a few people jumped the gun (but I still don't consider it disrespectful). Sadly, no new information has been added in the last ten days.
headloss
2013-10-09 10:46:28
byogman wrote:Just let it be until the facts do come out. Again, Vannevar did the productive thing, that’s all there was to do.
I'm not on board with V. doing the productive thing. He started this by rewriting the story to implicitly blame the driver -- "driving at an unknown speed." I don't think there's any real bias in the reporting here. The reporter just wrote the story based on the information available, which likely came, ultimately, from the driver. So the story was biased not because of the reporting but because of the nature of the situation. You can't expect a reporter to fix that. And I have doubts, BTW, that the facts will come out. Without charges filed against the driver, it's likely to be settled behind the scenes by insurance companies.
jonawebb
2013-10-09 10:48:21
"but what made it really awful was the same thing as we’re doing here, blaming a dead person." Correct me if I'm wrong, but the person dead here is the passenger, not the driver. To the extent we allow ourselves to be driven around by unsafe drivers, I suppose we're at fault for that too, but I don't think anybody has mentioned that up to this point. By the time facts come out, if ever, a multitude of people will have already died. What facts exactly do you expect to come out that would change the situation? Did the cyclist have some magic car crashing wand? I mean maybe he swerved out in front of them, but again, if the guy was passing at a prudent and reduced speed, that wouldn't be such an issue. Heck, maybe we're wrong here and the guy was only going 25mph, but still somehow ended up off the road when passing. Are we supposed to just say "Oh, that's sad. Life is precious" and go hug our family members? The same kind of crap is said after every gun massacre. "It's too early, we don't know all the facts." Yeah, a person used a gun to kill a bunch of people, WTF else is there to know? I can't even remember all the bicycle fatalities that have happened in this region this year and I don't think the facts for all of them are ever going to come to light
sgtjonson
2013-10-09 11:03:11
Some of the reports, not the one in the OP, made it sound even more like the cyclist was the cause of the whole mess… so much so that I question if sensationalism was intentional.
I have very few doubts. Sensationalism gets more clicks. At best, there appears to be an unwritten "manual of reporting style" governing what to say when a cyclist is even peripherally involved; more commonly, it looks like a deliberate attempt to assign blame without obviously violating "journalistic integrity".
reddan
2013-10-09 11:06:20
I’m not on board with V. doing the productive thing. He started this by rewriting the story to implicitly blame the driver — “driving at an unknown speed.”
I'm not Vannevar(duh!), but I took his original post as parody...illustrating how easy it is to twist the reporting of the situation to implicitly blame one party, while under the guise of objectively reporting the facts.
reddan
2013-10-09 11:13:14
My inclusion of the phrase “driving at an unknown speed” was quite intentional - to show how a writer's bias appears when pointed in the other direction. I didn't say he was speeding. It's a "we don't know when he stopped beating his spouse" phrase. ToBeSure, as they say, there is no knowledge of the driver's speed, and so it's literally technically correct to say 'driving at an unknown speed'. It's completely irrelevant. Just like the presence of the cyclist. Both of those shadow-weasel-allusions are unwarranted and unjustified. I wrote in in juxtaposition to the original, to demonstrate how vague innuendo casts shadows, smears, and blame. Which is how they treated the cyclist. I hoped people would object to the 'unknown rate of speed' because I hope it demonstrates the same bias from the other perspective, and perhaps how We identify with and defend Drivers but not Cyclists. ETA (just saw RedDan's post which came online while I was typing., +1 RedDan. also, I'm really not Vannevar either)
vannever
2013-10-09 11:22:30
jonawebb wrote:And I have doubts, BTW, that the facts will come out. Without charges filed against the driver, it’s likely to be settled behind the scenes by insurance companies.
I agree. This is probably the most astute observation here. The result is that the public memory will likely be left with only the journalist's most compressed version of the incident: "A Mercer County woman died this morning when the car she was a passenger in swerved to miss a bicyclist and struck a utility pole." That's it.
edmonds59
2013-10-09 11:37:34
"What I really don’t get is what exactly do you expect? Should we all wear hair shirts, sackcloth and ashes? Pilgrimage on our knees to the site of the unfortunate event?...Also the vast majority are due to driver error. And preventable. So if anyone is interested in stopping the death, rather than simply wringing hands, responsible journalists need to place the cause where it belongs – driver error (desperately trying to keep myself from going all caps)." I don't know you, but based on your phrasing something tells me you were being sarcastic there. Clever. That's fitting as it falls in line with the majority of the rest of these posts: being part of the problem and not part of the solution. I get it that we all want equal respect from cars when we're on bikes. What's the best way to achieve that? Oh, I don't know...maybe being respectful ourselves. It's posts like this that give us all a bad name in the minds of those who don't ride. It's posts like this that make drivers say, "I hate bikes," when they see us out there on the road rather than giving us the space we need. It's stuff like this that make them come on this very board and post misguided things, bashing us all. I don't mean that the general thought of the original post is rotten (we all know that ugly biases are everywhere, not excluding journalism), but showing such little respect throughout this discussion is so counter-productive it's almost comical. If the shoe was on the other foot how would we act then? I know there will be posts about the original article being overly-biased, etc. etc. and that that type of behavior can't go unchecked. I get that. I do. But there are much better ways to do that than to act like this. And for what it's worth, we're all so thrilled that you are able to demonstrate restraint by avoiding the temptation to use all caps. That's powerful stuff and definitely shouldn't be taken lightly. Thanks so much.
chrispissingrivers
2013-10-10 22:45:18
I'd like to respectfully suggest that we may be approaching diminishing returns on this topic. My best to you all. Cheers, V.
vannever
2013-10-10 22:52:08
cpr - the issue I have is your entire argument has essentially been of the "when did you stop beating your wife?" variety. You've been accusing people of "lacking compassion" - but that's based solely on your own assertion, which I don't believe is actually true. I think everyone here has tremendous sympathy for Ms. Kodali and her family; I certainly do. The driver (who apparently was her brother) certainly won't have an easy time dealing with what happened, in addition to whatever physical injuries he may have suffered. I think there's a good argument that the police should have withheld the details of the crash until their investigation was complete, and/or the paper should have refrained from publishing them. That didn't happen, but they're the ones who opened up this can of worms - not anyone here. As I said before, imagine being the cyclist involved - they were likely traumatized by what occurred, without having to open the newspaper and read this implication that they were somehow at fault. They deserve some sympathy as well, and they deserve to have someone stand up and reassure them and the rest of the world that it was not, in fact, their fault. So, assuming we're going to discuss this at all, how do we do it? Could some things have been written more delicately? Possibly, although it's also possible you've read more malice than actually exists - limitation of the medium and all. Repeatedly implying that everyone but you is a heartless asshole is not in fact "part of the solution" either.
salty
2013-10-11 00:53:01
^+1
edmonds59
2013-10-11 06:13:47
cpr was not the only one who got an unpleasant vibe reading the comments here. Deep down, I don't really think anyone here is nasty. But I do think there's a little less introspection happening about the comments than there ought to be. At guess at this point we'll have to agree to disagree. But in conclusion, I'll just heartily agree that it's wise to note the limitations of the medium. Wiser still to do so before posting.
byogman
2013-10-11 06:58:57
I'm pretty confident that my opinion of things has not been misinterpreted by the limitations of the medium. Every character I type is very carefully thought through and considered. The one thing I cannot simply agree to disagree on is the false presumption that any of my opinions of this result from some kind of cycling bias. As I said before, I am a driver as well, I enjoy it immensely, and take it very seriously. I am also pretty confident my opinions would not be substantially different if I had never touched a bike.
edmonds59
2013-10-11 08:10:45
edmonds59 wrote:Every character I type is very carefully thought through and considered.
Oh, my.
jonawebb
2013-10-11 09:46:03
?
edmonds59
2013-10-11 12:58:26
salty wrote:Repeatedly implying that everyone but you is a heartless asshole is not in fact “part of the solution” either.
That's not what this is about. I'm sorry if you're taking this the wrong way but that is not my point. At all. Not in the slightest. Apparently, we should just forget this whole thing.
chrispissingrivers
2013-10-14 08:08:06
"Looks like a pedestrian accident to me. They must have been moving at quite a clip."
kordite
2013-10-15 12:35:30
I'm a little confused by the allegation of bias. Is it because they called it an accident?
jonawebb
2013-10-15 13:57:09
I can't speak to rsprakes intent, but to me, to call it a "pedestrian accident" is a little strange, and questionable. "Man hit by a vehicle and killed while walking to a wedding." Better.
edmonds59
2013-10-15 14:28:00
"It’s posts like this that make drivers say, “I hate bikes,” when they see us out there on the road rather than giving us the space we need. " If people are endangering lives based on message board posts, they really shouldn't have a driver's license. Respect is a vague and wishy-washy word. I don't think any of us here thought we were being disrespectful. Sarcastic? Perhaps. But what do you want from us? I guess you want us to give more slack/understanding to the driver whose actions resulted in the death of another person? As far as I know, at this point, the only person he's going to be accountable to is himself and the victims family. But driving fatalities are a national societal problem. Part of the "solution" in my mind is recognizing that and not allowing each incident to sit in isolation unchecked and unchallenged. It's part of a wider behavior issue of driving unsafely, which again, unless anything else comes to light that states otherwise, is how I'm going to assume this guy was driving
sgtjonson
2013-10-15 15:34:32
Pierce wrote:But driving fatalities are a national societal problem. Part of the “solution” in my mind is recognizing that and not allowing each incident to sit in isolation unchecked and unchallenged.
I can be on board with that.
edmonds59
2013-10-15 15:47:32
edmonds59 wrote:I can’t speak to rsprakes intent, but to me, to call it a “pedestrian accident” is a little strange, and questionable. “Man hit by a vehicle and killed while walking to a wedding.” Better.
This.
rsprake
2013-10-15 16:41:04