A friend of mine took the photos, at around noon.
The basics seem to be:
Van travels westbound at high rate of speed.
Van hits bell shaped bollard in foreground
Van flips on side.
Van skids on side for a while.
Driver gets out, somewhat unharmed.
I'm glad no one was seriously hurt. Do we know if it was a personal van? Or a delivery van? Or one of those fly by night passenger vans?
I've had more close calls on Eastern Parkway then any other street in the city. The NYPD needs to actually enforce the traffic laws on it because people treat it like the Daytona 500.
I only know that only the driver was in the van.
I wonder if the bollard saved the traffic in the oncoming from the van.
Regardless, I will say "good job, bollard" the next time I walk buy it.
According to Streetsblog who quoted a group called The Tri-State Transportation Campaign the deadliest streets in Brooklyn are "Ocean Parkway (6); Eastern Parkway (5); Kings Highway (4); Utica Avenue (4); Bedford Avenue (4)."
Is the number in ( ) the number of fatal accidents in which someone was killed?
or, the number of people killed?
or something different?
I'm glad instagram was used to give something serious a nice artistic feeling.
I found the report newguy88 cited.
http://www.streetsblog.org/2013/02/26/tri-state-maps-nyc-pedestrian-deaths-by-age-and-gender/
The number in ( ) is the number of pedestrian deaths.
goldemi-
We aim to please.
The DOT has been been putting in those bollards in recent years specifically to divert speeding cars if they're heading toward pedestrians. I'm glad it worked. But it'd be better if people didn't speed on city streets full of pedestrians, rather than diverting them when they crash.
What we need are speed cameras, which Albany has been holding up:
http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/politics/2012/09/6537552/skeptic-calls-speed-camera-experimentation-mcguinness-boulevard
Or we need the 77th to actually issue some speeding tickets:
http://www.brooklynpaper.com/stories/35/30/all_brownstonespeedingjune_2012_07_27_bk.html
ehgee said:
What we need are speed cameras, which Albany has been holding up:
http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/politics/2012/09/6537552/skeptic-calls-speed-camera-experimentation-mcguinness-boulevardOr we need the 77th to actually issue some speeding tickets:
http://www.brooklynpaper.com/stories/35/30/all_brownstonespeedingjune_2012_07_27_bk.html
The fact that the NYPD continues to refuse to issue speeding tickets or any kinda of ticket to drivers. Heck if you kill someone and your behind a wheel it seems like you have a pretty good chance of not getting charged. Isn't the primary point of having a police force to enforce the law?
Speed cameras certainly couldn't hurt and there's a petition here to get them installed. http://www.transalt.org/takeaction/actioncenter/6443
And I'm sorry I should have explained my previous post better. The numbers in parentheses are indeed the number of pedestrians killed on those streets. I wish it said whether they were jaywalking or not. The deaths occurred between 2009 and 2011.
Speed cameras are like red light cameras in that when a fine is issued no points go on one's license as they can't be sure who was driving at the time. In addition, at what speed do they start snapping photos. Is it one mph over the limit or five or ten. Speedometer error has to be taken into consideration as sometimes they're off by a few mph. There are many variables here and it's not like a red light camera where either you ran the light or you didn't.
NYC's speed camera proposal is for cameras to take pictures starting at 40mph, which is a speed no one should ever reach on city streets, and fully a third above the maximum legal speed. The DOT has been making that point lately:
If someone's speedometer is off by a few MPH, they should have their car repaired. High speeds are very dangerous to the millions of pedestrians in this city. I've owned a car, and rarely broke the speed limit when not on a remote desert interstate. It's really easy to not speed on city streets-- just glimpse at your speedometer occasionally. But there are a ton of selfish jerks driving through this city that don't try to obey the speed limit because there's no enforcement.
I would prefer more NYPD enforcement of speed limits, but automated enforcement is far better than nothing.
By the way....is it ok for the cops to issue to tickets to people that cross against the light or don't cross in crosswalks. In many areas it's the pedestrians who are "selfish jerks." So, what's fair is fair, don't you think?
When's the last time you heard about a pedestrian killing someone by crossing against the light? Never, right? Maybe they occasionally make someone waste a couple seconds of time.
When's the last time a pedestrian was killed by a speeding driver? A day ago, probably, and most days before that.
It's a lot more selfish to speed on city streets, something that contributes to hundreds of deaths a year, than it is to walk on them.
But I have heard of quite a few people crossing where they shouldn't be and getting hit no matter what speed the car was going. Your argument makes no sense. And I won't even include bicyclists who cause accidents in this.
The intersection of Nostrand and EP is a perfect example. Eastbound cars have an early red light so that westbound cars can turn onto Nostrand. Pedestrians on the western side of the street often walk out to the middle of the parkway against the light even though westbound traffic still has the right of way. In the dark and inclement weather I've seen several people come close to getting clipped by cars that 1) have the right of way and 2)are not speeding. Years ago, we would have considered those folks stupid enough to walk out into oncoming traffic as potential Darwin Award winners. Now, they are poor innocents that must be protected from the demon auto at any cost.
I do love that this has turned into a thread about cars and pedestrians, when the accident seems to merely involve a van vs a bollard.
P.S. Bollard won.
PragmaticGuy said:
And I won't even include bicyclists who cause accidents in this.
I have never seen a study that states bike cause accidents. Link please.
Already with the Innocence of Bikers/Crazy Bikers?!!! It's not even Spring yet!
I've seen a number of people come pretty close to death at the intersection homeowner mentions. I've also seen, at that same intersection, cars crashed or over into the pedestrian walkways more times than makes me really comfortable to just stand there.
I believe instead of levying fines with red-light cameras, drivers should be made to take the Written and Driving test every five to seven years. Those who fail get their licenses yanked and their car/s impounded. If aviation pilots have to take a yearly medical as well as (in some cases) a Flying Check where the results are very low accident rates, surely, drivers should be made to do the same where the accident rates are pretty high.
whynot_31 said:
I do love that this has turned into a thread about cars and pedestrians, when the accident seems to merely involve a van vs a bollard.P.S. Bollard won.
Yeah, but it's not quite as exciting to be the champion for bollards. All they do is sit there...looking at you...
Perhaps I could put something on the bollards representing how many vehicles they withstood.
....like Allied fighter pilots did to their planes in WWII.
Instead of little Nazi symbols, I'd put a sticker in the shape of a car, or -in this case- a van.
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