Carnage culture needs to change

By On June 2, 2011 · 34 Comments

Updated June 5, 2011, to add new names.

If you ever read the comments under articles about a bicycle crash on a Chicago newspaper website, you’ll find the most hateful and misspelled vitriol about how bikers are horrible people and need to get off the road.

But bicycling poses no threat to public safety. Doing it actually enhances public safety and health. A recent study found that even though bicyclists inhale more pollution than people walking or driving, their lung capacity and health was such that they could “deal with it” better than people walking or driving. And if more people rode bicycles, there’d be fewer on-road injuries.

These are the people who need to get off the road:

Carlos Estrada, 42, of the 3600 block of Wisconsin Avenue, Berwyn, Illinois

A west suburban man was arrested on suspicion of DUI early Wednesday [June 1, 2011] — hours before he was to be sentenced for another DUI and more than 25 years after his license was revoked.

“Mr. Estrada has not had a valid driver’s license since September of 1985 and has been arrested several times in the past for driving while license suspended or revoked,” [Riverside Police Tom Chief] Weitzel said.

Chicago Sun-Times

Sandra Uher, 54, of Elgin, Illinois

A 54-year-old Elgin woman faces a little extra trouble with the law now, after she showed up drunk to her trial for her sixth DUI charge. The judge revoked bail and sent Sandra Uher to Cermak Hospital, part of the Cook County Jail. She could see six to 30 years in prison.

Daily Herald, via Chicagoist

Ryan LeVin, 36

On parole in Illinois, “A ‘millionaire playboy’ who killed two British tourists in Florida [Craig Elford, 39, and Kenneth Watkinson, 48] when his $150,000 Porsche jumped the curb will not go to jail, despite the fact that he fled the scene and lied to police officers about who was behind the wheel during the accident. Instead, he will pay cash restitution to the victims’ family, settling a civil suit on the condition that he not go to prison.”

Ryan LeVin, 36, will spend two years under house arrest in his parents’ oceanside condominium. LeVin initially denied driving the speeding car and pinned the blame on a friend. Illinois will seek to have his parole revoked and sent back to prison.

1st paragraph from Boing Boing, 2nd paragraph from Chicago Tribune

Kazimierz Karasek, 59 of Prospect Heights, Illinois

The driver of a semi truck who injured three dozen commuters when he turned into the path of a Metra train Friday [May 13, 2011] had accumulated more than 50 traffic citations since 1986 but hadn’t lost his license.

None of the infractions, including a 2000 drunken-driving arrest, triggered the suspension of the commercial driver’s license of driver Kazimierz Karasek, who was killed in the fiery wreck in Mount Prospect.

Chicago Tribune – They also have a map of the crash at Northwest Highway and Mount Prospect Road showing the string of events.

One of Kazimierz Karasek’s citations including driving the wrong way on a divided highway! There are hundreds of other people driving cars and trucks without licenses, on suspended licenses, and without the required insurance. That’s in addition to the hundreds of people who were not required to take driver’s education (in Illinois, people 18 and older are not required to take a formal driver’s education course). I am saying there are many bad drivers and many with poor or no education on how to drive legally and safely.

Yet we continue to let the drivers we know to be terrible at driving continue to drive and harass our cities and citizens. Those who take surface trains are not immune.

Array

A Union Pacific locomotive tows the UP-Northwest Metra train damaged by Kazimierz Karasek’s stupidity, his truck, and its cement slab cargo. Janelle has more crash photos.

Chicagoland is not the only place where we witness this carnage and traffic injustices. Streetsblog NYC today reports that an “unlicensed, speeding, hit-and-run driver who killed an elderly Staten Island couple in 2009 has been sentenced to a maximum of five years in jail.” Nice, right?

Array

Will this couple make it across Western Avenue safely? Photo by Joshua Koonce. In related news, the Chicago Department of Transportation and the Mayor’s Pedestrian Advisory Council will start the public planning process for the Chicago Pedestrian Plan. Find a list of meetings.

P.S.: Who still freaking drives around closed railroad gates?

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  • Everett Keyser

    Maybe there should be an online registry for bad drivers, akin to the sex offender registries. It’s possible that this data is already out there for some cities.

    On a side note, sites like WalkScore could even take into account how many offenders live in a particular area.

    • http://www.stevevance.net/planning Steven Vance

      I like where you’re going with this, but I think it won’t have the desired effect (eliminating bad drivers). The sex offender registry is in the same vein as the “I hired a prostitute” shaming registry. But does that mean people stop hanging out with that “John” or fire them? Neither behavior is as dangerous as ramming cars into people and things.

      Here’s why a registry or database won’t work: Bad drivers have no boundaries. They’re bad wherever they go. They’ll be reckless in your neighborhood and they’ll be reckless on your route to work. So knowing where they are won’t help you make better decisions on how to live your life.

      Three things that need to happen:
      1. There needs to be more outrage about crashes caused by drivers like the above.
      2. The Secretary of State office or DMV needs to ensure their system is properly applying our laws on bad drivers and suspending and revoking licenses.
      3. Judges need to consistently and harshly apply the laws when sentencing.

      I should probably say something about police, but without fancy camera equipment, they can’t always find those in known violation of license suspensions and revocations.

      • Anonymous

        Man gets 2 yrs home confinement after running over two men when his Porsche jumped onto the sidewalk will he was drag racing. Offensive enough, but the kicker is that he was already on probation for running over a police officer then leading cops on a high speed chase with cocaine in his car. 2 yrs confinement says to me that those two men had worthless lives in the eyes of the law.  http://trib.in/igCi6o

        • http://www.stevevance.net/planning Steven Vance

          That is pretty disgusting. 

        • Anonymous

          Boing Boing jumped on that Porsche story… http://bit.ly/lcIjLT

      • Jim Lucas

        We can take some unlicensed bad drivers off the road with such a registry. One thing that would help would be a picture of the vehicle, with its license number, that the perp was driving when caught. Distribute that information widely. Perps cannot constantly change vehicles.  I have known many a busybody who would be more than happy to alert the PD when the perp is seen driving it again. Such reports should be sufficient reason for a LEO to stop the vehicle and check out its operator.

        • http://www.stevevance.net/planning Steven Vance

          We have such a registry! 

          It’s the licensed drivers database at the Secretary of State’s office, who operates the Department of Motor Vehicles. Your driving record is stored here and the law enforcement has access to your driving record in their mobile computer consoles in each cop car. 

          It seems to be a matter of auditing those records to see who needs suspension, and also the police need to more quickly and randomly run plate numbers to find the people who are in violation of their suspensions and revocations. 

          It might also be prudent to register with the Secretary of State your proof of insurance. We can pre-emptively identify those drivers driving without required insurance instead of waiting until a crash happens and one of the drivers involved did not have the insurance. 

          • Adrienne

            There is no need to audit. Fourth ding and your license is revoked until you can prove it should not be. It is a computer data base and could be fully automated. If you are caught driving without a license, your car is permanently confiscated on the spot. In California, you can be pulled over and have your car impounded for having more than 5 unpaid parking tickets. I also believe the Uniform Vehicle Code allows for license suspension for greater than 3 violations on your active record. Enforcement of exisiting law would be helpful.

            Maybe those who are most effected by these drivers should start suing municipalities and DA’s who refuse to deal with the issue for wrongful injury and death when crap drivers are brought before them.

            Combine that and a tripling of vehicle registration and licensing fees and you will drop the jerk pool quite a bit.

          • http://www.stevevance.net/planning Steven Vance

            What I meant by audit was this:
            Make sure the search query that finds people whose licenses need to be suspended or revoked (because existing laws require the licenses to be suspended or revoked) is working.

            I would also advocate for driver’s reeducation at a certain age or duration of driving, regardless of history (curriculum could be tiered depending on driver history). 

  • andrew

    whenever there is a car crash, they say “speed was a factor.”  people accept ‘accidents’ because we all know that we are driving too fast to take responsibility for something that our brain cannot process.

    • http://www.stevevance.net/planning Steven Vance

      Humans were not made for driving. There’s too much to do and to be responsible for. But the “convenience” and “freedom” it gives us is the tradeoff we make for 33,000 deaths and a million injuries by automobile each year. 

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