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Pedestrian killed at Milton intersection
By adamg on Wed, 03/09/2016 - 7:33pm
State Police report a Milton 18-year-old crossing Brush Hill Road at Aberdeen Road around 3:30 p.m. was struck and killed by a Jeep driven by a Hyde Park man.
State Police say the driver tried to swerve into the median to avoid the woman. The driver stayed at the scene, State Police say, adding that while no charges have been brought, the crash remains under investigation.
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Comments
location
From the map (I don't know the area), Aberdeen Road is the small side street. So how did the driver hit her from the left lane, presumably of Brush Hill Road, while swerving onto that road's median, if the woman was crossing the side street?
Am I missing something?
Brush Hill/ aka Truman Parkway
is a bit of a speedway. I think there must be a typo in the report...I am guessing she was crossing Brush Hill "at" Aberdeen which makes more sense. I run/bike along this street (BH) and it is a windy road and one has to pay attention when crossing..cars appear out of nowhere, it seems. In this case, the young woman may have appeared out of nowhere. Very sad for the woman and the driver.
Speedway
Very much so, I live on Fairmount Hill and it's a dragstrip all hours of the day, and especially on weekends. There were troopers pulling people over this morning, so hopefully folks will slow down. Sad that the girl past away, my thoughts are with her family.
From context, it seems like
From context, it seems like it was supposed to read "was crossing at Aberdeen Road."
Well, this sucks. You know,
Well, this sucks. You know, there's no legal pedestrian crossing of Truman Parkway/Brush Hill Road for a mile and a half from Fairmount Ave to Blue Hill Ave. With the Neponset River Trail on the river side, I see lots of people cross in that stretch. To cap it off, when you get to Blue Hill Ave, the walk signal tells you to cross against a green light.
It is sad that city
It is sad that city governments only starts to get a tiny bit serious about pedestrian deaths after a dozen or so people die in a very short amount of time. Average citizens seem to know how to solve the problems(more crosswalks, better enforcement, lower speed limits) yet the people who are paid to figure these things out keep letting people die while they conduct yet another study.
Brush Hill Road is a state road
Specifically, the Department of Conservation and Recreation. Also, the crash occurred in the Town of Milton.
I don't want to write things akin to what a former commentor, whose world view on cars and pedestrians is as messed up on the other side as you are on your side, but until we have all the facts, we might want to withhold blame. The legal speed limit on that stretch of road is 40, and I would imagine that getting hit by a car at that speed wouldn't end well.
The crazy thing
Look at the Google Street View of the intersection. There's a woman waiting for the Google car to go by before crossing the street with her dog.
Sure, this is a problem that goes back decades, but you would think they would want to better integrate the reservation with the neighborhood right across the street.
I do worry about the "linking" of the Neponset River Trail at Mattapan, too. I wouldn't want to cross from the station to the other side of Blue Hill Ave at that point, but somehow that will be the way to get from A to B.
Of course, condolences to the family of the victim. Way too young to die.
The former MDC War on Pedestrians
Toward the end of the MDC era, they had a guy at the top of the organization who had declared an open war on anything but cars cars cars and more cars.
When they were redoing Memorial Drive by MIT, they wanted crosswalks ONLY at Mass Ave. No others. They thought it was totally fine that someone wanting to get to one of the boat houses from campus walk a half mile to Mass Ave, cross, then a half mile back to their destination.
Because cars! And more cars!
They wanted to eliminate all crosswalks at a major multi-way intersection in the Newton/Watertown area, too. It was insane.
These were the years where they had the State Police attempt to arrest and detain any cyclist using the Longfellow Bridge. It took three or four separate smackdowns in court (judges ruled that the bridge was not a limited access highway, then ruled that they were harassing people after being told to stop, etc.) plus some big settlements to stop that shit.
I'm betting the lack of crosswalks where they are obviously needed in this situation wasn't a simple omission, but a result of the MDC, in its last years, systematically removing every crosswalk and crossing light that they possibly could from their roadways.
So fucking much for recreational use of their property.
By decades I mean
Back before the road further up was named for Truman.
But yeah, the LAST commissioner is to blame.
No marked crossing
My recollection (sorry, no source) is that if there is no crosswalk within 300' that it's legal for a ped to cross the street right there. Of course, this doesn't apply to places where peds are prohibited -- limited access highways.
I don't know this location -- but if there is no crosswalk across Brush Hill within 300', pedestrians can legally cross at that site, in principle.
crosswalks
http://www.mass.gov/courts/docs/lawlib/700-799cmr/720cmr9.pdf
On this stretch of road, each block is around 300 feet from the next, and there are no marked crosswalks, so pedestrians may legally cross at any intersection.
Whether drivers yield the right of way is another matter.
The Globe is reporting that
The Globe is reporting that the driver was an off duty Boston cop.
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/03/10/teenager-fatally-hit-car-way...