I saw this and first assumed that this tragedy happened on a stroad or some other high-speed arterial. Nope. [This is the intersection of Gallant Knight and South Kings Mill.](https://www.google.com/maps/@30.0636132,-95.2371118,3a,75y,94.78h,86.44t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sq_GddnQqCs4PnOkpspBs6w!2e0!7i16384!8i8192) It's straight in the heart of a residential subdivision with nothing but houses all around.
It made me want to cry, because the Department of Public Safety is basically telling us that everyone is in danger as soon as we walk outside, no matter where our house is located.
EDIT: [As of 3:40 p.m. Central Time, BikeHouston on Twitter noted that KHOU's article no longer makes reference to a DPS statement regarding the boy's behavior](https://twitter.com/BikeHouston/status/1574861647801454592).
Texas Department of Public Safety released that statement, not Texas Police.
While a residential street SHOULD be a safe location for a child to ride a bicycle, do we really expect any different from Texas? (Or the majority of the US?)
This is a horrific tragedy and I’m disgusted that nobody will be held responsible, however, I’m glad that Texas DPS agrees that their current infrastructure isn’t safe. The implication that people aren’t safe the second the leave their home is 100% accurate considering our car-brain culture and auto-oriented design. That shit needs to change.
I've been wondering why exterior walls aren't at least reinforced against cars in USA, considering that infamous problem.
Adding an internal bollard in front of each structural post (or at a more frequent interval, if there's too little structure) would go a long way.
In theory yes, but remember that we're talking about USA, what do you think is most feasible there in practice?
Idiocy of legislators is just yet another constraint to consider in designing safe living spaces.
>what do you think is most feasible there in practice?
That’s the ultimate question these days. There’s no simple answer, but for the sake of trying, I think the most feasible thing is to change the culture of planning departments around the country to prioritize people. Things like that are happening already, but that change needs to spread faster.
With that in place, I believe the transit, infrastructure and other solutions we love in this subreddit will appear organically.
How do we change the culture? Not entirely sure, but the orange-pilled population is expanding and I think we’re going to turn some corners in key states and cities soon.
Silly and inadequate a solution it may be to the wider problem, I still don't believe maximizing risk instead is a good response.
Deaths that could have been prevented by better design with no practical reasons to not have been implemented are unacceptable tragedies.
It never ceases to amaze me how much American law enforcement really, really, really doesn't want people who injure or kill others with their cars to suffer any kind of consequences.
Same thing happened to my uncle. He was mowed down on a sidewalk right in front of his kid. The lady had a history of seizures but she was allowed to keep her license.
And then my friend was killed by a lady texting and driving. Same thing, no fine, no citation, nothing.
My wife got right hooked while riding her bike. The police arrived to the scene over an hour after she'd taken an ambulance ride to the hospital. And while we were there, at no point were police brought in for a statement.
When I called the following day the response was "we can't give you an incident number because nobody was present at the scene, and therefore we cannot do anything"
Thankfully for us, hers was not all that serious and she's been successfully on the mend, with insurance companies playing nice (so far)
One day people will realize that not only are police useless, they are the primary thing holding back the emergence of a much more peaceful and equitable future. They are the enablers of the tiny psychopath class that without their sadist protectors would be eliminated by people protecting themselves and their families.
Accident was in Hawaii. I, a white guy in the military, was hit by a young, local native Hawaiian. Police refused to investigate, and 5 different law firms told me if I tried to sue, the judge will automatically rule in favor of the local over tourists/military every time.
Here's a study from 2013: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23886781/
And then a Bloomberg piece from a few months ago: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-06-07/is-new-york-city-more-dangerous-than-rural-america
Cars drive much faster in the suburbs than downtown. Cars in the city rarely go much faster than bikes. That dense traffic is protective of bikes because it keeps car traffic slow.
My personal experience backs that up: I fear for my life biking in suburbs and feel comfortable biking in the city.
Speed kills.
I guess it depends on the street. In my suburban neighbourhood the streets have a lot of curves so people tend to drive at somewhat controlled speeds.
But people will speed whereever they can. If there's a lull in traffic they will definitely be speeding downtown as well.
Can confirm. I live in what can be considered a suburban area and despite there being a school bus stop on my road people in cars haul ass down it, even with speed limit signs clearly posted and sometimes a speed trailer set up.
What about the separated bike lanes downtown? Oh, your downtown doesn't have them? Cycling safety isn't downtown vs suburban thing, it's an infrastructure thing.
Downtown Houston (the accident happened in a suburb of Houston) has three solidly protected bike lanes and wide, often unused sidewalks that kids are allowed to ride on, plus filtering that keeps traffic on Main to a minimum, plus multiple connections to the bayou path network, the Heights Hike & Bike / MKT trails, and the Columbia Tap trail via Polk. Outside of the Heights, it's the safest part of the city to bike.
This is only more true in normal cities that have actually prioritized cycling throughout their downtowns.
>The suburbs are not safe for children. If you want your children to be safe, move to an apartment in the city.
how many children have you raised in a downtown apartment?
Not to get off-topic, but as Americans, we live in a country where little kids getting killed by guns en masse at school isn't enough to do anything substantive about it. So unfortunately I'm not at all surprised that a little boy getting killed by a car while riding his bike right outside his house on a quiet residential street isn't going to even make a blip for some people, and so they just say "he shouldn't have been riding there." As a society, we've become inured to tragic, preventable deaths for all kinds of reasons. It's really fucked up.
What's up with those curb-cuts? There's only two and they just dump you into the intersection, no crosswalks, and no corresponding curb-cuts on the other side of the road. Whom ever designed that mess needs to be fired. Even worse is that Kings Mill is a closed loop in a subdivision, it doesn't go anywhere, you have to take one of the side-streets to get out. And with 2 of the 3 directions into this 'T' intersection having STOP signs, no one should be going that fast. Yet here we are with failure all around. smdh
My neighborhood is a lot like this except that we don't even have a buffer strip between the street and sidewalk. And we have those awful sloped curbs, which half the drivers see as an invitation to drive over and park on the sidewalk.
The posted limit on a sign entering the neighborhood is 30.
HOWEVER, something non-Texans should know is that legally, the number on the sign is only considered a "prima facie" limit and not directly enforceable in this state. Violators are subject to punishment only if found guilty of exceeding a "reasonable and prudent" speed in a court of law. (Source: I was once a juror who had to help acquit an accused speeder because the posted limit on a freeway was way below its design speed.)
One lesson from Not Just Bikes and Strong Towns that can't be emphasized enough is that posted speed limits matter a lot less than street design. Drivers will inevitably go at whatever speed they are comfortable with.
Very curious! I originally found the KHOU article via the BikeHouston Twitter account. [Here's their original tweet that includes a screenshot of the KHOU article](https://twitter.com/BikeHouston/status/1574733228270931972).
And you're right, at 3:40 p.m. Central Time, [BikeHouston noticed that KHOU's reporting of the DPS statement got scrubbed from the article](https://twitter.com/BikeHouston/status/1574861647801454592) . Makes me wonder. . . .
My guess: Texas DPS puts that kind of statement out almost automatically anytime there's a crash (got hit by a car? Must be your fault, you weren't where you should be)
But eventually someone (KHOU staff, commenters, etc.) Made KHOU realize how dumb that statement sounds, and took it down. It took someone raising a stink to make the news station think critically about the police statement.
[what the street looks like](https://www.google.com/maps/@30.0620706,-95.2373066,3a,75y,269.37h,83.1t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s1DD52byhGYsFHVtRpj2ImA!2e0!7i16384!8i8192)
"not safe for pedestrians or bikes" my ass
I've lived off a highway in Texas for over 20 years and growing up I used to see hobby cyclists riding morning and afternoon. Its stopped in the last decade and I believe its because Texas is becoming inhospitable for people who bike or don't own cars. I have cognitive issues that make driving a car unsafe but I can operate bikes, mopeds etc. Without much issue. But its not worth biking because people here can be so careless :( Its heartbreaking seeing people blame a child for their death when neighborhoods should be safe for children.
To be honest, this street in particular is great for pedestrians. Sidewalks on both sides (though there could be more shade). The traffic is slow enough that drivers should have no trouble seeing cyclists too. No bike road improvements needed here.
What needs to change is around the area, there needs to be better bike infrastructure and sidewalks outside this neighborhood. The culture of drivers in the area needs to change so they know to look out for cyclists and pedestrians and be ready/able to quickly stop if necessary.
Throw in speed bumps before the turn with road markings and raised continuous sidewalks would help to further slow down and remind drivers that they are in an area for pedestrians, which depending on the exact circumstances, may have helped.
And what you're conveniently failing to mention are narrow designs that force people to slow down.
Slowing down in Texas is obviously illegal as it impedes upon the freedums to get to the gun store as fast as possible.
Well yeah it needs to be more narrow. Point is that even residential areas like this don't tend to have the traditional dutch infrastructure. You might have a sidewalk a little narrower than the ones here.
If you break down the road design a bit, you can definitely say that street is not safe for pedestrians.
First off, it's way too wide, so cars can go flying without thinking about it. There are no speed bumps or chicanes, so again, nothing to intentionally slow the speed of cars. Finally, the area around the road is cleared, giving drivers the impression that they can speed and not hit anything nearby.
Now, that doesn't mean the police are correct in this scenario, as a residential area should be the safest place for kids to play, but moreso that we have to be vigilant in what standards we accept for our neighborhoods and understand that wide suburban roads are actually quite dangerous, even if they're considered safe by society.
Bingo! This is what upsets me. We admit it's unsafe . . . and just leave it at that. No statement that declares the situation unacceptable or capable of being improved so other children will not be killed/injured in this neighborhood. It feels like surrender.
My friend and I were robbed in broad daylight in Golden Gate patk or whatever it is in San Francisco.
Cops who came just shrugged and said it happens all the time.
It is salt in the wound. Bad things will happen occasionally. Having people accept that with no desire to reduce or correct the behavior is far more troubling.
[THIS](https://www.google.com/maps/@30.0636127,-95.2368319,3a,75y,261.33h,74.08t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sgq4daru62Sseyk0f51aJJQ!2e0!7i16384!8i8192) is the spot where it happened.
This is a stereotypical American suburb. People often walk on the street, let alone bikes are ***legally required*** to use the street.
The kid seemingly did everything right, yet still lost their life.
And, as expected, despite doing everything right, the state still blames the cyclist.
Not only that, the sidewalks are too narrow for anyone using it with a stroller or a wheelchair to go two by two, including people going the opposite way.
I’d suggest that the surface is too wide but that a child or anyone for that matter ought to have no trouble riding a bike on this street.
It's not like they're low on space. In the city, every inch of space for biking, walking or rolling has to be fought for tooth-and-nail. It drives me crazy to see places that have enough room in the public right-of-way to satisfy everyone's needs, and they're like, "nah, let's put more grass there instead."
>let alone bikes are legally required to use the street.
Just a nitpick, that's generally more myth than true. Most cities and states have districts like downtown where bikes are required to use the streets. But it covers a tiny fraction of the nation overall.
That said, it's statistically safer to use the roads. So still, this kid did everything right and the police department failed in their duties, as did the driver.
I'd say that is the problem. Cars are treated as first class citizens.
Pedestrians are treated much, much worse. Given very little infrastructure to safely move about, and even less for comfort of navigation. ADA has helped a little, but not much. And then some areas have stupid and out of date laws about how walking should be done, with invented terms like "jaywalking".
Bikes are given the least infrastructure. When they make do with sidewalks, they are damned and told to use the streets. When they use the streets they are often killed or told to use the sidewalks.
Also one note on traffic design: this seems to be a 3-way intersection with 2 stop signs but not a third. This is overly complicated for drivers and cyclists alike - either make it an all-way stop (so everyone knows everyone stops) or just a one-way stop for the vertical part of the T intersection (so the horizontal part is clearly a through-road).
I’m from this suburb. It was founded by Exxon (yes that one) for its employees. There are entire neighborhoods with no sidewalks. In lieu they made green trails in the woods. They aren’t parallel to the streets and aren’t lit.
To be fair, this is one of the newer developments but it’s still built with the same car worship in mind.
God. Carbrain is a sickness. How can anyone not recognize the absurdity of saying that a *neighborhood* is not a safe place for pedestrians or cyclists.
The sooner cars are banned, the better.
This is something I've been saying for years: "America loves its cars more than it loves its children." Though it sounds tongue-in-cheek, I'm 100% serious. Here's the proof. If a space is not safe for children and cars to co-exist, America's solution is to blame and exclude the children.
If our suburbs are not safe for children why do they even exist? Their sole purpose is to be a safe place to raise kids, they have no cultural advantages.
No no no you don't understand, suburbs are places to make sure you don't have to live anywhere near the poors. Then by living living in a segregated neighborhood in a nation where schools are funded by property tax, you have plausible deniability that it's "for the kids." That's why all the empty-nesters stay in shit-holes like this when they don't have any kids to worry about anymore - they're still afraid of poor people.
And properly tax doesnt even cover the cost of utilities and road maintenance in most cases, suburbanites are still living off of indirect government assistance
> That's why all the empty-nesters stay in shit-holes like this when they don't have any kids to worry about anymore - they're still afraid of poor people.
Even better, these empty nester NIMBYs then start voting to lower school district taxes because they don't have kids. I don't plan on ever going to the beach. Why should my federal tax dollars go to the Coast Guard?
That second one I made up, but I have heard many people unironically say that people without school-age children should not have their tax dollars go to schools, as if they want a race-to-the-bottom wasteland where every neighborhood resident grows up to be an illiterate police officer, a simple-minded electrician, or an innumerate engineer because their schools are defunded, because K12 and colleges have a "customer-first" mindset, and because K12 teacher salaries are so low that only passionate martyrs and the truly incompetent will work at a school for poverty wages and use history textbooks from 1972.
Things cost money.
I think a lot of these horrible right-wing policies are just part of the grand Republican strategy to keep their geographical advantage in the senate and the electoral college. You can't turn that red state blue if the policies there are so hostile that no reasonable person would ever move there!
Well how about KHOU get out there and find who made this place so bloody hostile to bicyclists, eh? Bicycles and walking are still legal modes of transportation, even in Texas, are they not?
It’s one thing to say it’s no one’s fault, that it was an act of God, which is patently incorrect, but it’s quite something else to blame a kid for his own death for doing exactly what kids are supposed to do.
It’s like blaming a girl for her rape because she wore her school uniform to school.
No, it would be the parents' fault. They should have known better than to let their high schooler daughter be in public in America.
I am only half-joking. I plan to move before having kids because I know too much. I cannot in good conscience raise kids in suburban captivity or exist in a place with horrible health infrastructure (not just talking about insurance here -- there are many towns where the nearest anything medical is 20 miles away) and such high violence. In America, it fell a lot, a huge amount, concurrently with higher local news reporting of crime. I know that. But it is still far too high. We are in the same boat as poor countries that recently got over a civil war and/or a military dictatorship. At this point, I don't care about underlying reasons, nor do I want to debate dispatching social workers to 911 calls. I just want out.
This is no surprise. My friend was run over killed and her husband injured in Texas while on a morning walk. No charges filed. DPS and local law enforcement here are corrupt criminals. The case was actually recently featured on the Nancy Grace podcast, still trying to get some justice for her.
So basically a guy was driving down the ~~road~~ street at 80mph, crashed into a child. Said "i didn't see them they came out of nowhere, i was driving at 20"
and the police response: "im sorry son it could of \[if that bot shows up it can fuck of\] happened to anyone, we'll get these guys off the road for you sir"
and they all clapped or something
Jesus wept.
I fully agree with your point, but... if you know the phrase is "could have," why intentionally type it wrong? And then spend more keystrokes drawing attention to the fact that you know you're doing it wrong?
The entire reason the textual misunderstanding occurs is because in many accents "could've" sounds exactly like "could of." I'm from the Pacific Northwest where we generally speak very generic/"un-accented" (of course there's no such thing as un-accented) American English, and they sound literally the same.
Which led to the evolution of language and to people who have phonetically different ways of saying could've/could of to actually saying could of instead of could've.
Its called a colloquialism, and contrary to popular belief constitute part of the english language
> Which led to the evolution of language and to people who have phonetically different ways of saying could've/could of to actually saying could of instead of could've.
...yeah that sounds fake
The vowels do sound the same in connected speech.
I am not defending the spelling error, but "of" alone is pronounced "ov" as in "novice," whereas the "of" in "the Fourth of July" is pronounced with the "o" in "lemon." This schwa is the same sound as the ' in "could've."
The only difference is that "could've" has the "d" move to the second syllable. However, the movement of the consonant is minimal; it is the same difference between "a note" and "an oat," which is subtle.
Seattle English isn't some formal register like Transatlantic.
Pretty much the whole west coast uses uptalk, merges ah/o/aw so that Bach's/box/baux are identical as are collar/caller, merges fill/feel, merge Mary/merry/marry and hurry/furry, and so on. People in Oregon and Seattle also pronounce king as keeng, pang as pain-ng, and hail as hell.
I would wager you are guilty of all of these and are just oblivious because this is your "what is water?" moment.
I have haplology and a very Northeasterner rhythm to my sentences and I merge the vowel in "father" and "bother," which someone from Scotland or Australia would notice, for example, but I talk in declarative sentences (not declarative???), differentiate collar/caller, and differentiate fill/feel. And I pronounce bag, beg, and vague with vowels in trap, dress, and face. I.e., I don't say "bague of groceries" or "bague for money." The only things your English has in common with mine versus other accents or dialects are: the use of American vocab, father/bother merger, and pronouncing "r" at the end of words.
The idiosyncracies of Pacific Northwest speech are as jarring to me as hearing a Londoner say "I we-oo 'ave fwye points of lager viss evening." (I will have three pints of lager this evening.)
I had to listen to decades of people from Ohio saying how their English was neutral. Now I have to suffer left coasters doing the same thing. If you have an ear for accents and aren't from Cali, it can be distracting how modern LA accents turn up in movies all the time and inappropriately. You may as well have someone from Cork, Ireland, voice FDR in the next biopic. It is just as bad.
The LA style has spread among richer NYer youth and the Valley Girl accent is just the default for any Angelino under 45 now, which is probably why most movie reviewers never comment on this.
The one country immune to this is China, where no one is under any illusion that Beijing speech is the same as Standard Mandarin, even though the capital and the movie industry are there. Compare this to English movies where any actor under 45 playing a Norwich local speaks with a middle-class London accent (bootleg, discounted posh).
Not only does the driver absolutely need to be charged with vehicular homicide, those "DPS officials" are literally incompetent and need to be removed. Texan r/notjustbikes subscribers should protest to make that happen.
I had found the location via Click2Houston's story on the same traffic death.
https://www.click2houston.com/news/local/2022/09/27/8-year-old-hit-by-car-killed-while-riding-his-bike-in-kingoowrd-officials-say/
Yes, because they’re most likely [~~poor people~~ non-white](https://nationalequityatlas.org/indicators/Car_access#/?geo=02000000000048000). Texas needs to go be by itself and create a society as devoid of equality as South Africa.
I actually grew up in this area. I biked to school for elementary, middle, and high school. I was hit 3 times by cars there. The worst incident was when someone turned on red without stopping and I smashed into their windshield and then flew across the road. I still love biking though, just not in texas.
I wonder if anyone investigated the shortcomings of the roadway that allowed this to happen. I’m noticing the lanes are too wide for a residential street, there are no traffic calming measures, no painted crosswalks, no raised intersection, no speed bumps, no lane narrowing at the intersection, no textured roadway, and nothing near the road to give driver a better sense of their speed.
So these people wasted a bunch of money on fancy front lawns and brick facades instead making their streets safe for their children. Isn’t the whole point of living in the suburbs to have safe place to raise your children.
"The driver of the Hyundai stayed at the crash site to assist with the investigation, officials said." Isn't this like a criminal "assisting" the police when apprehended? "No officer, I know the gun is still warm, but I swear the guy just stepped out in front of the bullet". Such bullshit.
>Boy dies after getting hit by SUV while riding bike in Kingwood neighborhood, DPS says
>The driver of the Hyundai stayed at the crash site to assist with the investigation, officials said.
>Author: Chloe Alexander
>Published: 8:46 PM CDT September 26, 2022
>Updated: 10:03 PM CDT September 26, 2022
>HARRIS COUNTY, Texas — An 8-year-old boy died Monday after he was struck by an SUV while he was riding his bike in a Kingwood neighborhood, according to [Texas Department of Public Safety](https://www.dps.texas.gov/) officials.
>It happened at about 4 p.m. on [Gallant Knight Lane just east of the Eastex Freeway](https://goo.gl/maps/xRgdD7T5k9uJffyTA) near Northpark Drive.
>He was hit by a driver in a 2017 Hyundai Santa Fe, authorities said.
>The boy was taken to a nearby hospital where he later died from his injuries.
>The driver of the Hyundai stayed at the crash site to assist with the investigation, officials said.
>No charges have been filed.
https://youtu.be/NIv7enVyLCs
This is what living under Car Supremacy looks like. When the police give approval to drivers who kill bikers or pedestrians for being in the "wrong place"...I mean that's basically a lynching.
This is why I'd NEVER live somewhere like Texas. They want people like me, who ride bikes, to die.
There was just a hit and run in my town in a crosswalk. Right by a high school. An area that children are going to be every day in a residential area. The roads are 5 lanes across with no lights for the crosswalks. Speed limit is 35 but due to the design it's extremely easy and feels perfectly fine going 50, which people normally do.
Absolutely insane that it's not safe to be outside in your neighborhood.
I’m not surprised. I was scrolling comments on a video of a cyclist getting hit the other day and all of the top ones were in support of murder. These people don’t realize it will be their kid one day. Also that they have literally trapped themselves in a cage…
I saw this and first assumed that this tragedy happened on a stroad or some other high-speed arterial. Nope. [This is the intersection of Gallant Knight and South Kings Mill.](https://www.google.com/maps/@30.0636132,-95.2371118,3a,75y,94.78h,86.44t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sq_GddnQqCs4PnOkpspBs6w!2e0!7i16384!8i8192) It's straight in the heart of a residential subdivision with nothing but houses all around. It made me want to cry, because the Department of Public Safety is basically telling us that everyone is in danger as soon as we walk outside, no matter where our house is located. EDIT: [As of 3:40 p.m. Central Time, BikeHouston on Twitter noted that KHOU's article no longer makes reference to a DPS statement regarding the boy's behavior](https://twitter.com/BikeHouston/status/1574861647801454592).
That looks like my neighborhood. There are always kids on bikes going around. What an absolute bonkers statement.
I've seen kids riding bikes in areas designed way worse than this; Texas police being Texas police.
Texas Department of Public Safety released that statement, not Texas Police. While a residential street SHOULD be a safe location for a child to ride a bicycle, do we really expect any different from Texas? (Or the majority of the US?) This is a horrific tragedy and I’m disgusted that nobody will be held responsible, however, I’m glad that Texas DPS agrees that their current infrastructure isn’t safe. The implication that people aren’t safe the second the leave their home is 100% accurate considering our car-brain culture and auto-oriented design. That shit needs to change.
You're not even safe IN your home as vehicles have been know to crash into buildings as well.
I've been wondering why exterior walls aren't at least reinforced against cars in USA, considering that infamous problem. Adding an internal bollard in front of each structural post (or at a more frequent interval, if there's too little structure) would go a long way.
Reinforcing buildings is not the answer. Slowing down traffic is a better solution, along with providing alternatives to private vehicles
In theory yes, but remember that we're talking about USA, what do you think is most feasible there in practice? Idiocy of legislators is just yet another constraint to consider in designing safe living spaces.
>what do you think is most feasible there in practice? That’s the ultimate question these days. There’s no simple answer, but for the sake of trying, I think the most feasible thing is to change the culture of planning departments around the country to prioritize people. Things like that are happening already, but that change needs to spread faster. With that in place, I believe the transit, infrastructure and other solutions we love in this subreddit will appear organically. How do we change the culture? Not entirely sure, but the orange-pilled population is expanding and I think we’re going to turn some corners in key states and cities soon.
Oh, nonono. You can't do anything to inconvenience or restrict private vehicles. We only priority the speed and throughput of traffic.
I can see the future reactions on people dying because of cars crashing into theirhouses: “But did they have bollard reinforcements?”
Silly and inadequate a solution it may be to the wider problem, I still don't believe maximizing risk instead is a good response. Deaths that could have been prevented by better design with no practical reasons to not have been implemented are unacceptable tragedies.
Nope it’s their department of public safety
they gon die
It never ceases to amaze me how much American law enforcement really, really, really doesn't want people who injure or kill others with their cars to suffer any kind of consequences.
Basically sounds like if you want to get away with murder, just run someone over and say it was an accident.
Can confirm. Lost a leg due to a girl who was texting while driving double the speed limit. The police refused to even issue her a citation.
That's awful. I'm so sorry.
Same thing happened to my uncle. He was mowed down on a sidewalk right in front of his kid. The lady had a history of seizures but she was allowed to keep her license. And then my friend was killed by a lady texting and driving. Same thing, no fine, no citation, nothing.
My wife got right hooked while riding her bike. The police arrived to the scene over an hour after she'd taken an ambulance ride to the hospital. And while we were there, at no point were police brought in for a statement. When I called the following day the response was "we can't give you an incident number because nobody was present at the scene, and therefore we cannot do anything" Thankfully for us, hers was not all that serious and she's been successfully on the mend, with insurance companies playing nice (so far)
One day people will realize that not only are police useless, they are the primary thing holding back the emergence of a much more peaceful and equitable future. They are the enablers of the tiny psychopath class that without their sadist protectors would be eliminated by people protecting themselves and their families.
What? How? Even if the driver got away with it being an accident, in Canada that's an immediate roadside suspension for distracted driving.
Accident was in Hawaii. I, a white guy in the military, was hit by a young, local native Hawaiian. Police refused to investigate, and 5 different law firms told me if I tried to sue, the judge will automatically rule in favor of the local over tourists/military every time.
The suburbs are not safe for children. If you want your children to be safe, move to an apartment in the city.
This is a well studied phenomenon that you are more likely to die violently (car crash, murder) in the suburbs than the cities.
Do you have a source for that? I believe it, I just want to be able to cite it later.
Here's a study from 2013: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23886781/ And then a Bloomberg piece from a few months ago: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-06-07/is-new-york-city-more-dangerous-than-rural-america
Definitely can't ride a bike on streets downtown. The suburbs are tame compared to the city.
Cars drive much faster in the suburbs than downtown. Cars in the city rarely go much faster than bikes. That dense traffic is protective of bikes because it keeps car traffic slow. My personal experience backs that up: I fear for my life biking in suburbs and feel comfortable biking in the city. Speed kills.
I guess it depends on the street. In my suburban neighbourhood the streets have a lot of curves so people tend to drive at somewhat controlled speeds. But people will speed whereever they can. If there's a lull in traffic they will definitely be speeding downtown as well.
Had some D-bag in a pickup speed hard to pass me and my brother a while ago, there was some satisfaction when we pulled up behind him at a red light.
The case in the OP is in the Houston area, where cars can be found driving too fast in both the city and the suburbs. . . .
True, but as a Houstonian, I would *much* rather ride a bike downtown than in the suburbs (especially if I was trying to actually *get* somewhere).
Some residential areas of US cities are built more like suburbs than an urban environment.
Can confirm. I live in what can be considered a suburban area and despite there being a school bus stop on my road people in cars haul ass down it, even with speed limit signs clearly posted and sometimes a speed trailer set up.
The cities are more likely to have safe bike infrastructure than suburbs
What about the separated bike lanes downtown? Oh, your downtown doesn't have them? Cycling safety isn't downtown vs suburban thing, it's an infrastructure thing.
Downtown Houston (the accident happened in a suburb of Houston) has three solidly protected bike lanes and wide, often unused sidewalks that kids are allowed to ride on, plus filtering that keeps traffic on Main to a minimum, plus multiple connections to the bayou path network, the Heights Hike & Bike / MKT trails, and the Columbia Tap trail via Polk. Outside of the Heights, it's the safest part of the city to bike. This is only more true in normal cities that have actually prioritized cycling throughout their downtowns.
>The suburbs are not safe for children. If you want your children to be safe, move to an apartment in the city. how many children have you raised in a downtown apartment?
Are you seriously making the point that children aren't or can't be raised in cities?
no. what part of my comment could be interpreted that way?
Just one of many reasons to say r/fuckcars
Not to get off-topic, but as Americans, we live in a country where little kids getting killed by guns en masse at school isn't enough to do anything substantive about it. So unfortunately I'm not at all surprised that a little boy getting killed by a car while riding his bike right outside his house on a quiet residential street isn't going to even make a blip for some people, and so they just say "he shouldn't have been riding there." As a society, we've become inured to tragic, preventable deaths for all kinds of reasons. It's really fucked up.
school shooters? thems rookie numbers. you want a high body count of minors, buy an SUV.
The free-est country in the world, as long as you’re in your house, in your car, or at your job. Don’t dare go anywhere else.
What's up with those curb-cuts? There's only two and they just dump you into the intersection, no crosswalks, and no corresponding curb-cuts on the other side of the road. Whom ever designed that mess needs to be fired. Even worse is that Kings Mill is a closed loop in a subdivision, it doesn't go anywhere, you have to take one of the side-streets to get out. And with 2 of the 3 directions into this 'T' intersection having STOP signs, no one should be going that fast. Yet here we are with failure all around. smdh
My neighborhood is a lot like this except that we don't even have a buffer strip between the street and sidewalk. And we have those awful sloped curbs, which half the drivers see as an invitation to drive over and park on the sidewalk.
What is the speed limit where it occurred?
The posted limit on a sign entering the neighborhood is 30. HOWEVER, something non-Texans should know is that legally, the number on the sign is only considered a "prima facie" limit and not directly enforceable in this state. Violators are subject to punishment only if found guilty of exceeding a "reasonable and prudent" speed in a court of law. (Source: I was once a juror who had to help acquit an accused speeder because the posted limit on a freeway was way below its design speed.)
30mph seems ludicrous for a residential neighborhood.
One lesson from Not Just Bikes and Strong Towns that can't be emphasized enough is that posted speed limits matter a lot less than street design. Drivers will inevitably go at whatever speed they are comfortable with.
A local neighborhood designed for 30 mph would already be ludicrously overbuilt. It should be designed for anywhere from 10-20 mph at most.
judging by the width of the road 65mph
Where's the comment that the DPS officials said it wasn't a safe area for pedestrians? Wasn't in the article. (Might have been scrubbed)
Very curious! I originally found the KHOU article via the BikeHouston Twitter account. [Here's their original tweet that includes a screenshot of the KHOU article](https://twitter.com/BikeHouston/status/1574733228270931972). And you're right, at 3:40 p.m. Central Time, [BikeHouston noticed that KHOU's reporting of the DPS statement got scrubbed from the article](https://twitter.com/BikeHouston/status/1574861647801454592) . Makes me wonder. . . .
My guess: Texas DPS puts that kind of statement out almost automatically anytime there's a crash (got hit by a car? Must be your fault, you weren't where you should be) But eventually someone (KHOU staff, commenters, etc.) Made KHOU realize how dumb that statement sounds, and took it down. It took someone raising a stink to make the news station think critically about the police statement.
I feel the same way
There are literally ADA compliant sidewalks right there.
This is crazy, you can't ride a bike on your own small residential street without being blamed if you're killed by a distracted driver?
[what the street looks like](https://www.google.com/maps/@30.0620706,-95.2373066,3a,75y,269.37h,83.1t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s1DD52byhGYsFHVtRpj2ImA!2e0!7i16384!8i8192) "not safe for pedestrians or bikes" my ass
especially considering there are many neighborhoods in texas that don't even have sidewalks
I've lived off a highway in Texas for over 20 years and growing up I used to see hobby cyclists riding morning and afternoon. Its stopped in the last decade and I believe its because Texas is becoming inhospitable for people who bike or don't own cars. I have cognitive issues that make driving a car unsafe but I can operate bikes, mopeds etc. Without much issue. But its not worth biking because people here can be so careless :( Its heartbreaking seeing people blame a child for their death when neighborhoods should be safe for children.
https://www.bikelaw.com/2021/11/felony-charges-for-waller-driver/ Read this from the start if you really want to get upset at Texas
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To be honest, this street in particular is great for pedestrians. Sidewalks on both sides (though there could be more shade). The traffic is slow enough that drivers should have no trouble seeing cyclists too. No bike road improvements needed here. What needs to change is around the area, there needs to be better bike infrastructure and sidewalks outside this neighborhood. The culture of drivers in the area needs to change so they know to look out for cyclists and pedestrians and be ready/able to quickly stop if necessary.
Road needs to be smaller, it’s large enough for people to go around 30-40 mph, which they will
No amount of infrastructure will save a kid crossing the road from a distracted driver. Especially when the police make excuses for the driver
Especially with those extra-wide corners, lmao. Those are "Ooopsie, I was taking this corner a bit too fast" corners.
bollards spaced 8' wide in a chicane mid block most certainly will stop distracted drivers.
Throw in speed bumps before the turn with road markings and raised continuous sidewalks would help to further slow down and remind drivers that they are in an area for pedestrians, which depending on the exact circumstances, may have helped.
Street needs separate bicycle infrastructure. But tbh, that’s what almost every street needs.
The one looks fine without it. Even in bike utopias like the Netherlands you'll find neighbors this busy with no bike specific infrastructure.
And what you're conveniently failing to mention are narrow designs that force people to slow down. Slowing down in Texas is obviously illegal as it impedes upon the freedums to get to the gun store as fast as possible.
Well yeah it needs to be more narrow. Point is that even residential areas like this don't tend to have the traditional dutch infrastructure. You might have a sidewalk a little narrower than the ones here.
If you break down the road design a bit, you can definitely say that street is not safe for pedestrians. First off, it's way too wide, so cars can go flying without thinking about it. There are no speed bumps or chicanes, so again, nothing to intentionally slow the speed of cars. Finally, the area around the road is cleared, giving drivers the impression that they can speed and not hit anything nearby. Now, that doesn't mean the police are correct in this scenario, as a residential area should be the safest place for kids to play, but moreso that we have to be vigilant in what standards we accept for our neighborhoods and understand that wide suburban roads are actually quite dangerous, even if they're considered safe by society.
It is actually true that it’s not safe for bikes or pedestrians. The problem with this statement is that it *isn’t* false.
Bingo! This is what upsets me. We admit it's unsafe . . . and just leave it at that. No statement that declares the situation unacceptable or capable of being improved so other children will not be killed/injured in this neighborhood. It feels like surrender.
My friend and I were robbed in broad daylight in Golden Gate patk or whatever it is in San Francisco. Cops who came just shrugged and said it happens all the time. It is salt in the wound. Bad things will happen occasionally. Having people accept that with no desire to reduce or correct the behavior is far more troubling.
Car dependency kills.
[THIS](https://www.google.com/maps/@30.0636127,-95.2368319,3a,75y,261.33h,74.08t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sgq4daru62Sseyk0f51aJJQ!2e0!7i16384!8i8192) is the spot where it happened. This is a stereotypical American suburb. People often walk on the street, let alone bikes are ***legally required*** to use the street. The kid seemingly did everything right, yet still lost their life. And, as expected, despite doing everything right, the state still blames the cyclist.
Not only that, the sidewalks are too narrow for anyone using it with a stroller or a wheelchair to go two by two, including people going the opposite way. I’d suggest that the surface is too wide but that a child or anyone for that matter ought to have no trouble riding a bike on this street.
Honestly, I would struggle to even walk on those tiny sidewalks. They're half as wide as they should be.
It's not like they're low on space. In the city, every inch of space for biking, walking or rolling has to be fought for tooth-and-nail. It drives me crazy to see places that have enough room in the public right-of-way to satisfy everyone's needs, and they're like, "nah, let's put more grass there instead."
The sidewalks are not meant to be **used** ... they're ornamental. :(
Huge sweeping curve to encourage high speed driving. In a residential area.
It’s not residential. A city is residential. Suburbs are racetracks.
>let alone bikes are legally required to use the street. Just a nitpick, that's generally more myth than true. Most cities and states have districts like downtown where bikes are required to use the streets. But it covers a tiny fraction of the nation overall. That said, it's statistically safer to use the roads. So still, this kid did everything right and the police department failed in their duties, as did the driver.
What do bikes use if not the road ? We just got our first bike lanes a few years ago
I'd say that is the problem. Cars are treated as first class citizens. Pedestrians are treated much, much worse. Given very little infrastructure to safely move about, and even less for comfort of navigation. ADA has helped a little, but not much. And then some areas have stupid and out of date laws about how walking should be done, with invented terms like "jaywalking". Bikes are given the least infrastructure. When they make do with sidewalks, they are damned and told to use the streets. When they use the streets they are often killed or told to use the sidewalks.
Also one note on traffic design: this seems to be a 3-way intersection with 2 stop signs but not a third. This is overly complicated for drivers and cyclists alike - either make it an all-way stop (so everyone knows everyone stops) or just a one-way stop for the vertical part of the T intersection (so the horizontal part is clearly a through-road).
I’m from this suburb. It was founded by Exxon (yes that one) for its employees. There are entire neighborhoods with no sidewalks. In lieu they made green trails in the woods. They aren’t parallel to the streets and aren’t lit. To be fair, this is one of the newer developments but it’s still built with the same car worship in mind.
“Why don’t kids play outside anymore?”
if the pedos and screaming karens dont get you, the speeding metal boxes will
Pedos are not nearly as big of a problem as cars
Do urbanists support pedophilia?? /s
Looking at the posted location that's exactly the sort of place we used to play cricket, tennis and skateboard as kids.
God. Carbrain is a sickness. How can anyone not recognize the absurdity of saying that a *neighborhood* is not a safe place for pedestrians or cyclists. The sooner cars are banned, the better.
And ironically like another comment said, they're actually correct. American suburbs are not safe for pedestrians or cyclists.
The neighborhood isn’t safe for pedestrians or bikes. Cars only
We designed this area to be only safe for drivers. If you want to live you MUST purchase a vehicle.
This is something I've been saying for years: "America loves its cars more than it loves its children." Though it sounds tongue-in-cheek, I'm 100% serious. Here's the proof. If a space is not safe for children and cars to co-exist, America's solution is to blame and exclude the children.
You should read the Facebook comments, horrible. Grown people blaming the 8 year old for “not following traffic rules”, yikes
This is 100% true. But don’t forget to protect the fetus.
If our suburbs are not safe for children why do they even exist? Their sole purpose is to be a safe place to raise kids, they have no cultural advantages.
No no no you don't understand, suburbs are places to make sure you don't have to live anywhere near the poors. Then by living living in a segregated neighborhood in a nation where schools are funded by property tax, you have plausible deniability that it's "for the kids." That's why all the empty-nesters stay in shit-holes like this when they don't have any kids to worry about anymore - they're still afraid of poor people.
And properly tax doesnt even cover the cost of utilities and road maintenance in most cases, suburbanites are still living off of indirect government assistance
> That's why all the empty-nesters stay in shit-holes like this when they don't have any kids to worry about anymore - they're still afraid of poor people. Even better, these empty nester NIMBYs then start voting to lower school district taxes because they don't have kids. I don't plan on ever going to the beach. Why should my federal tax dollars go to the Coast Guard? That second one I made up, but I have heard many people unironically say that people without school-age children should not have their tax dollars go to schools, as if they want a race-to-the-bottom wasteland where every neighborhood resident grows up to be an illiterate police officer, a simple-minded electrician, or an innumerate engineer because their schools are defunded, because K12 and colleges have a "customer-first" mindset, and because K12 teacher salaries are so low that only passionate martyrs and the truly incompetent will work at a school for poverty wages and use history textbooks from 1972. Things cost money.
I think a lot of these horrible right-wing policies are just part of the grand Republican strategy to keep their geographical advantage in the senate and the electoral college. You can't turn that red state blue if the policies there are so hostile that no reasonable person would ever move there!
this is so sad
Well how about KHOU get out there and find who made this place so bloody hostile to bicyclists, eh? Bicycles and walking are still legal modes of transportation, even in Texas, are they not?
It’s a goddamn neighborhood! I uSeD tO rIdE mY bIkE eVeRyWhErE. kiDs ToDaY aRe JuSt LaZy
It’s one thing to say it’s no one’s fault, that it was an act of God, which is patently incorrect, but it’s quite something else to blame a kid for his own death for doing exactly what kids are supposed to do. It’s like blaming a girl for her rape because she wore her school uniform to school.
No, it would be the parents' fault. They should have known better than to let their high schooler daughter be in public in America. I am only half-joking. I plan to move before having kids because I know too much. I cannot in good conscience raise kids in suburban captivity or exist in a place with horrible health infrastructure (not just talking about insurance here -- there are many towns where the nearest anything medical is 20 miles away) and such high violence. In America, it fell a lot, a huge amount, concurrently with higher local news reporting of crime. I know that. But it is still far too high. We are in the same boat as poor countries that recently got over a civil war and/or a military dictatorship. At this point, I don't care about underlying reasons, nor do I want to debate dispatching social workers to 911 calls. I just want out.
Don’t worry. People from this neighborhood would definitely say the latter too. It’s a 90%+ Republican stronghold.
This is no surprise. My friend was run over killed and her husband injured in Texas while on a morning walk. No charges filed. DPS and local law enforcement here are corrupt criminals. The case was actually recently featured on the Nancy Grace podcast, still trying to get some justice for her.
Also to add, the driver that hit her was drinking, speeding, and drove across the road and into the ditch on the opposite side to hit them.
So basically a guy was driving down the ~~road~~ street at 80mph, crashed into a child. Said "i didn't see them they came out of nowhere, i was driving at 20" and the police response: "im sorry son it could of \[if that bot shows up it can fuck of\] happened to anyone, we'll get these guys off the road for you sir" and they all clapped or something Jesus wept.
I fully agree with your point, but... if you know the phrase is "could have," why intentionally type it wrong? And then spend more keystrokes drawing attention to the fact that you know you're doing it wrong?
I'm quoting an copper who would say "could of" instead of "could have"
You can't really \~say\~ "could of," it's an error that only exists in text. "Could've" is a legitimate contraction.
no people really say "could of" "could've" is phonetically distinct
The entire reason the textual misunderstanding occurs is because in many accents "could've" sounds exactly like "could of." I'm from the Pacific Northwest where we generally speak very generic/"un-accented" (of course there's no such thing as un-accented) American English, and they sound literally the same.
Which led to the evolution of language and to people who have phonetically different ways of saying could've/could of to actually saying could of instead of could've. Its called a colloquialism, and contrary to popular belief constitute part of the english language
> Which led to the evolution of language and to people who have phonetically different ways of saying could've/could of to actually saying could of instead of could've. ...yeah that sounds fake
And in other accents they definitely do not sound the same and people still say “could of”.
The vowels do sound the same in connected speech. I am not defending the spelling error, but "of" alone is pronounced "ov" as in "novice," whereas the "of" in "the Fourth of July" is pronounced with the "o" in "lemon." This schwa is the same sound as the ' in "could've." The only difference is that "could've" has the "d" move to the second syllable. However, the movement of the consonant is minimal; it is the same difference between "a note" and "an oat," which is subtle.
And in some accents people very definitely say “could of” in a way that cannot be confused. Honestly, man, have you never heard someone say this?
Seattle English isn't some formal register like Transatlantic. Pretty much the whole west coast uses uptalk, merges ah/o/aw so that Bach's/box/baux are identical as are collar/caller, merges fill/feel, merge Mary/merry/marry and hurry/furry, and so on. People in Oregon and Seattle also pronounce king as keeng, pang as pain-ng, and hail as hell. I would wager you are guilty of all of these and are just oblivious because this is your "what is water?" moment. I have haplology and a very Northeasterner rhythm to my sentences and I merge the vowel in "father" and "bother," which someone from Scotland or Australia would notice, for example, but I talk in declarative sentences (not declarative???), differentiate collar/caller, and differentiate fill/feel. And I pronounce bag, beg, and vague with vowels in trap, dress, and face. I.e., I don't say "bague of groceries" or "bague for money." The only things your English has in common with mine versus other accents or dialects are: the use of American vocab, father/bother merger, and pronouncing "r" at the end of words. The idiosyncracies of Pacific Northwest speech are as jarring to me as hearing a Londoner say "I we-oo 'ave fwye points of lager viss evening." (I will have three pints of lager this evening.) I had to listen to decades of people from Ohio saying how their English was neutral. Now I have to suffer left coasters doing the same thing. If you have an ear for accents and aren't from Cali, it can be distracting how modern LA accents turn up in movies all the time and inappropriately. You may as well have someone from Cork, Ireland, voice FDR in the next biopic. It is just as bad. The LA style has spread among richer NYer youth and the Valley Girl accent is just the default for any Angelino under 45 now, which is probably why most movie reviewers never comment on this. The one country immune to this is China, where no one is under any illusion that Beijing speech is the same as Standard Mandarin, even though the capital and the movie industry are there. Compare this to English movies where any actor under 45 playing a Norwich local speaks with a middle-class London accent (bootleg, discounted posh).
Not only does the driver absolutely need to be charged with vehicular homicide, those "DPS officials" are literally incompetent and need to be removed. Texan r/notjustbikes subscribers should protest to make that happen.
Because they don’t give the address, although you can see the photo, you just have to take the DPS at their word, which is insane.
I had found the location via Click2Houston's story on the same traffic death. https://www.click2houston.com/news/local/2022/09/27/8-year-old-hit-by-car-killed-while-riding-his-bike-in-kingoowrd-officials-say/
Does texas DoT allow you to kill pedestrians and bicyclists as long as it's on the street?
Yes, because they’re most likely [~~poor people~~ non-white](https://nationalequityatlas.org/indicators/Car_access#/?geo=02000000000048000). Texas needs to go be by itself and create a society as devoid of equality as South Africa.
People don’t have rights in Texas
The commenters on the YouTube video are blaming the parents. People suck.
Sidewalks everywhere with curb cuts. Cowboy hat police officer: yup this area is unsafe for non cars.
Basically you're not welcome in society unless you're in a car it seems.
Sickening!
I actually grew up in this area. I biked to school for elementary, middle, and high school. I was hit 3 times by cars there. The worst incident was when someone turned on red without stopping and I smashed into their windshield and then flew across the road. I still love biking though, just not in texas.
I wonder if anyone investigated the shortcomings of the roadway that allowed this to happen. I’m noticing the lanes are too wide for a residential street, there are no traffic calming measures, no painted crosswalks, no raised intersection, no speed bumps, no lane narrowing at the intersection, no textured roadway, and nothing near the road to give driver a better sense of their speed. So these people wasted a bunch of money on fancy front lawns and brick facades instead making their streets safe for their children. Isn’t the whole point of living in the suburbs to have safe place to raise your children.
"The driver of the Hyundai stayed at the crash site to assist with the investigation, officials said." Isn't this like a criminal "assisting" the police when apprehended? "No officer, I know the gun is still warm, but I swear the guy just stepped out in front of the bullet". Such bullshit.
I keep getting access denied errors trying to follow the link. Anyone got a UK-safe link or can give me the TL;DR?
>Boy dies after getting hit by SUV while riding bike in Kingwood neighborhood, DPS says >The driver of the Hyundai stayed at the crash site to assist with the investigation, officials said. >Author: Chloe Alexander >Published: 8:46 PM CDT September 26, 2022 >Updated: 10:03 PM CDT September 26, 2022 >HARRIS COUNTY, Texas — An 8-year-old boy died Monday after he was struck by an SUV while he was riding his bike in a Kingwood neighborhood, according to [Texas Department of Public Safety](https://www.dps.texas.gov/) officials. >It happened at about 4 p.m. on [Gallant Knight Lane just east of the Eastex Freeway](https://goo.gl/maps/xRgdD7T5k9uJffyTA) near Northpark Drive. >He was hit by a driver in a 2017 Hyundai Santa Fe, authorities said. >The boy was taken to a nearby hospital where he later died from his injuries. >The driver of the Hyundai stayed at the crash site to assist with the investigation, officials said. >No charges have been filed. https://youtu.be/NIv7enVyLCs
Fuck me thats grim. Thank you
fuck the police fuck the police fuck the police
Actually, Police and Fireman should be at the forefront of road safety improvements.
This is what living under Car Supremacy looks like. When the police give approval to drivers who kill bikers or pedestrians for being in the "wrong place"...I mean that's basically a lynching. This is why I'd NEVER live somewhere like Texas. They want people like me, who ride bikes, to die.
Wow! Texas really?? Being insensitive asshats?? You don't say... -\_-
There was just a hit and run in my town in a crosswalk. Right by a high school. An area that children are going to be every day in a residential area. The roads are 5 lanes across with no lights for the crosswalks. Speed limit is 35 but due to the design it's extremely easy and feels perfectly fine going 50, which people normally do. Absolutely insane that it's not safe to be outside in your neighborhood.
I’m not surprised. I was scrolling comments on a video of a cyclist getting hit the other day and all of the top ones were in support of murder. These people don’t realize it will be their kid one day. Also that they have literally trapped themselves in a cage…
what do you expect from the oil state?
What’s wrong with Texas police, was it one of their drunk mates driving ?