Road Crime

Roads - Rails - Sidewalks - Bikeways
EOst
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Re: Road Crime

Postby EOst » October 20th, 2015, 6:09 am

Here's the thing:

When a teenager gets shot in the head while sitting in his parked car, that's a tragedy.

When a woman gets shot *blocks* away from her bus stop, that's Time for a Conversation About Transit Violence.

You're right; perception is reality. But that doesn't mean we can ignore the role that each of us plays in setting that perception. On any given day, hundreds of people die from automobiles; mere handfuls die every year from violence or accidents on transit. Why is the latter something we have to get worked up about, when the former is always business as usual? Because whenever violence happens on transit, people with intentions good and ill jump on it to further their own agenda. Maybe they should! But just waving your hands and saying "perception matters!" is myopic; perception is caused by the reception each of these crimes gets among the media and among each of us when we talk to our friends and neighbors.

You're afraid of people littering? Of people who put their feet on the seats? How do those affect you in any way? Do you honestly believe that people who litter have any correlation to those who are thinking about jumping up and starting to shoot? Do you judge these people for their actions, or are you judging them because these people (while doing these things) fulfill some other engrained stereotype about "those kinds of people"; they're poor, they're uncouth, they don't adhere to Minnesota's (middle class, white) standard of dress, they have a different skin tone? How many people have actually been shot or mugged on the Green Line? How many people have been beat up on the Green Line whose assailants weren't cops? The numbers might surprise you.

ProspectPete
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Re: Road Crime

Postby ProspectPete » October 20th, 2015, 7:38 am

You're afraid of people littering? Of people who put their feet on the seats? How do those affect you in any way? Do you honestly believe that people who litter have any correlation to those who are thinking about jumping up and starting to shoot? Do you judge these people for their actions, or are you judging them because these people (while doing these things) fulfill some other engrained stereotype about "those kinds of people"; they're poor, they're uncouth, they don't adhere to Minnesota's (middle class, white) standard of dress, they have a different skin tone? How many people have actually been shot or mugged on the Green Line? How many people have been beat up on the Green Line whose assailants weren't cops? The numbers might surprise you.
[/quote]

Nah, I'm not scared of people littering, or spitting sunflower seeds, or swearing. It just makes the ride unpleasant. Doesn't it specifically say that you shouldn't put your feet on the seats? To not litter?
Do I really have to defend my displeasure when I see someone messing up our shared public investment? Our common-wealth?
And yes, like most, I judge people by their actions.

Didier
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Re: Road Crime

Postby Didier » October 20th, 2015, 8:02 am

You're afraid of people littering? Of people who put their feet on the seats? How do those affect you in any way?
You totally got him. Nitpicking these minor examples definitely invalidates his larger point.

EOst
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Re: Road Crime

Postby EOst » October 20th, 2015, 8:36 am

Nah, I'm not scared of people littering, or spitting sunflower seeds, or swearing. It just makes the ride unpleasant. Doesn't it specifically say that you shouldn't put your feet on the seats? To not litter?
Do I really have to defend my displeasure when I see someone messing up our shared public investment? Our common-wealth?
And yes, like most, I judge people by their actions.
You say that people feel unsafe using urban public transit. You justify this statement by saying that you often see people "not holding up their end of the social contract" by committing minor nuisance crimes, like littering, or things that are not at all crimes, like swearing. You then say that those create the perception that you're not in a safe environment and are potentially under threat.

My question is, what makes you think those minor and frankly harmless things should cause a perception that public transit isn't safe? If a guy in a suit and expensive headphones has his feet up on the seat, do you feel threatened? If a transit cop swore, would you look uneasily at their gun? Is it these actions that make you nervous, or is it the people and the context? And what specifically about those people and that context puts you on edge?
You totally got him. Nitpicking these minor examples definitely invalidates his larger point.
Do you not see the irony here?

Didier
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Re: Road Crime

Postby Didier » October 20th, 2015, 10:04 am

Not sure there's irony. Your point seems to be that people shouldn't feel uncomfortable on public transit because of car accidents. It's not really worth responding to because it's immaterial to the reasonable points Pete brought up.

As far as I can tell, you're really just trying to subtly "get" ProspectPete by inferring that he's racist for thinking a group of kids putting their feet on seats and littering on the train at night invokes a different reaction from when a businessman puts his feet on a chair or a cop drops some F-bombs on the afternoon commute.

LakeCharles
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Re: Road Crime

Postby LakeCharles » October 20th, 2015, 10:10 am

You nitpicked his argument to "get him" that nitpicking doesn't invalidates larger arguments. It was pretty funny.

I will also agree that a woman getting murdered 4 blocks from a bus stop, however horrible, has little to do with public transit. If you live in the city, you are almost always within 4 blocks of a bus stop. If she was shot while walking up the block from where she parked her car, would that be a reason to not drive cars?

Didier
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Re: Road Crime

Postby Didier » October 20th, 2015, 10:26 am

I purposely wasn't responding to his tangental argument. That was kind of the point.

kirby96
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Re: Road Crime

Postby kirby96 » October 20th, 2015, 10:28 am

My question is, what makes you think those minor and frankly harmless things should cause a perception that public transit isn't safe?
...because they are typical of the inconsiderate, anti-social behaviors that all too often characterized the 18 yr. old male bullies, d-bags, and even violent jackasses that I saw first hand at white bread Anoka high school?

or to put it alternatively, atypical of my black neighbors?

EOst
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Re: Road Crime

Postby EOst » October 20th, 2015, 12:11 pm

As far as I can tell, you're really just trying to subtly "get" ProspectPete by inferring that he's racist for thinking a group of kids putting their feet on seats and littering on the train at night invokes a different reaction from when a businessman puts his feet on a chair or a cop drops some F-bombs on the afternoon commute.
Why would you have a different reaction? Your chance of getting attacked by either is essentially nil; the difference (given the number of people who take public transit, the number of roaming bands of teenagers, and the absolute rarity of violent crime on public transit) is a rounding error. But one makes people worry for their safety, and one is something no-one worries about. You don't have to be a Social Justice Warrior to wonder why that is.

mattaudio
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Re: Road Crime

Postby mattaudio » October 27th, 2015, 10:48 am

http://www.kttc.com/story/30359285/2015 ... ok_KTTC_TV
Police are investigating after a man rolled his car into the front lawn of a NW Rochester home overnight.

LakeCharles
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Re: Road Crime

Postby LakeCharles » November 1st, 2015, 7:26 pm


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FISHMANPET
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Re: Road Crime

Postby FISHMANPET » November 1st, 2015, 7:37 pm

I think I'm pretty much done being anything but absolutely outraged at this. Book him for murder. What the hell was he doing that he ended up in the grass? There's no way you obey all the laws and end up skidding in the grass. Plenty of victim blaming in that article as well. I'm just disgusted. Matt calls it the Minnesota Massacre and I'm not always on board with that phrasing because there's nothing particularly unique to Minnesota in that regard, but I'm convinced. It's a massacre. Car culture in this country is just disgusting.

EOst
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Re: Road Crime

Postby EOst » November 1st, 2015, 8:01 pm

It could be a swerve accident, where the driver tried to avoid hitting one person and ended up hitting the other.

Anondson
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Re: Road Crime

Postby Anondson » November 1st, 2015, 8:20 pm

Anything else that caused this much death and injury would be called a threat to public health, and public institutions and academics would be full tilt pushing known best practices to make it go down. Our institutions are failing us all.

mattaudio
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Re: Road Crime

Postby mattaudio » November 1st, 2015, 8:35 pm

(I call it the Minnesota Massacre because people in other states have done the same thing with positive results. See Florida Massacre https://twitter.com/FLmassacre )

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FISHMANPET
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Re: Road Crime

Postby FISHMANPET » November 1st, 2015, 8:41 pm

Has it been effective in Florida? Isn't Florida basically one giant Stroad?

I wonder if the US can ever assemble a national protest movement the way the Dutch did: Stop de Kindermoord (Stop the Child Murder)

Rich
Rice Park
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Re: Road Crime

Postby Rich » November 2nd, 2015, 4:32 pm

Apparently the 5-yr-old jumped from an eastbound car and was quickly struck in the westbound lane by a driver who couldn’t stop in time.

http://www.startribune.com/trick-or-tre ... 339416871/

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FISHMANPET
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Re: Road Crime

Postby FISHMANPET » November 2nd, 2015, 5:14 pm

Still not acceptable, streets should be designed such that you can't go any faster than you'd need to react to something suddenly appearing in the street. And on halloween of all nights, of course there are going to be children running around.

This is what disgusts me. We'll just write this off, nobody was malicious in their actions so this is just another tragic but unpreventable accident. This child is yet another victim of our rampant car culture, where neither the drivers on the street nor the engineers that design those streets are held accountable for their actions and failures.

Anondson
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Re: Road Crime

Postby Anondson » November 4th, 2015, 5:39 pm

Drunken driver assaults drive thru window server because of slow service and dropped change.

http://m.startribune.com/video-drama-ir ... ection=%2F

Charged with misdemeanor assault, but strangely not DUI.

xandrex
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Re: Road Crime

Postby xandrex » November 13th, 2015, 12:46 pm

Drunken driver assaults drive thru window server because of slow service and dropped change.

http://m.startribune.com/video-drama-ir ... ection=%2F

Charged with misdemeanor assault, but strangely not DUI.
Someone from my high school days in NE Minnesota took the chance to call out the McDonald’s employee (of all people) and say, “AND THEY EXPECT $15 AN HOUR!?” I’d laugh if it weren’t so sad.

This could go here or in our road crime thread, but an interesting infographic on how much higher transportation fatalities are in the US vs. the rest of the OECD. Britain now has the lowest rates. The Economist seems to indicate it’s because of all the traffic-calming measures. http://www.economist.com/news/britain/2 ... g-measures


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