[PRCo] Re: Wabash Tunnel in Operation

[Fred Schneider]

Are pedestrians not an example of Darwinism?   Unfortunately, we have  
that here in Lancaster County all the time where tourists try to  
cross the four lane Lincoln Highway on foot from one attraction to  
another.  One of the worst recent cases was the man who was tried and  
convicted of manslaughter because he was intoxicated when he lead his  
son into the path of an automobile.   We loose several every year in  
a five mile stretch.    There are crosswalks but it is like forcing  
deer to use underground tunnels under a turnpike in the woods.   The  
only other solution, as I personally see it,  would be to condemn  
valuable commercial property in order to install jug handles and also  
2 feet of everyone's property on both sides to get enough additional  
width to install a Jersey Barrier for the entire length.  That hasn't  
even been discussed in the newspapers.

Unfortunately, Pennsylvania has long had a problem with enforcing the  
pedestrian yield law.   I was on a west coast vacation when it was  
enacted circa 1972.    Yes guys, we have the same law as  
California.   The one that reads, if you show intent to cross in a  
crosswalk, all traffic must stop.   But no knows it.   When I came  
back from that vacation I asked one of the Capitol policemen in  
Harrisburg if it passed and he replied, "Yes but we won't enforce it  
because it slows traffic."   And that seemed to be the consensus  
everywhere but in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where it was always  
rigorously enforced.   Throughout most of Pennsylvania you would  
never know we had such a law.   There is a crosswalk in front of the  
Lancaster General Hospital and the only time motorists stop is when a  
policeman is there to force traffic to stop.   And I blame the  
problem on the police for not enforcing the law right from the  
gitgo.   If the AAA and all the newspapers and TV and radio stations  
had publicized the law and the police had enforced in starting in  
1972, we would not have  people hit on Braddock Avenue.


On Jan 19, 2007, at 11:22 PM, Joshua Dunfield wrote:

>
> Ed Lybarger wrote:
>
>> It has been my experience that lawyers, like all other  
>> professionals, have both good
>> actors and bad actors.  What bothers me more than the relative  
>> worthiness of any
>> profession is the concept that American people don't have to be  
>> responsible for their
>> own actions, choosing instead to blame everything on others.
>
> If a pedestrian is run down in a Braddock Avenue crosswalk in the same
> place as two previous crashes, should the people who decide not to  
> put in
> a stop sign have *no* responsibility?  Sure, the driver who failed  
> to yield
> deserves most of the blame, but after two previous incidents it  
> should be
> incumbent on the people who control the street to address the  
> situation.
> In principle, the Wabash Tunnel is no different from Braddock Avenue;
> in practice, I don't think there's a genuine problem with the Wabash
> Tunnel...unlike Braddock Avenue.
>
>> If it's our own fault that we kill ourselves, why should others pay?
>>
>> Ed
>
> They shouldn't.  But juries in personal injury cases routinely find  
> that
> blame is shared.  Sometimes the party most at blame can't pay,  
> which means
> that they get off and a third party (say, PAT) ends up paying out of
> proportion to its responsibility.  It's not ideal, but do you have  
> a better
> way?  *Someone* needs to pay, if at all possible, or a party that's  
> really
> not at fault gets nothing.
>
> Seems to me that an awful lot of public concern about people "not  
> taking
> responsibility" is based on sensationalist accounts of "runaway  
> juries".
> People watch a 60 second news clip and think they know more about  
> the case
> than the jury, who sat through hours of actual evidence.
>
> Best,
> -j.
>