[PRCo] Re: Wabash Tunnel in Operation

[John Swindler]

And then there was the capital policeman who stopped traffic at North and 
Commonwealth this week to let pedestrians cross - and a motorist decided 
that this was the appropriate time to make a left turn onto North!!!  Yes, 
this generated much whistle blowing - but just a warning and not a ticket.



>From: Fred Schneider <fwschneider at comcast.net>
>Reply-To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
>To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
>Subject: [PRCo] Re: Wabash Tunnel in Operation Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2007 
>08:46:19 -0500
>
>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.
> >
>
>

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