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Pedestrian critically injured in South Boston crash

Preble Street crash scene

Investigators investigate crash car and scene on Preble Street.

Jim Gavaghan, who took the photo, reports a man was taken to the hospital this morning with injuries serious enough to have the BPD homicide and fatal-accident reconstruction teams called in after he was hit by a car on Preble Street between Rogers and Ward streets.

The driver, whose windshield the man hit, remained on the scene.

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Comments

I don't visit Southie often, but I understand there has been a speeding issue there since the invention of the automobile. Judging by the impact on the windshield, I'm assuming speed was a major factor here.

Here's to hoping the poor guy pulls through.

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Double parking is not effective traffic calming

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on this when the post about all the tickets being issued on Day Blvd came out, but its so true. The highest count I have reached is 9 double parked cars at city point (Broadway and L) but i'm sure it gets worse at times. Every day I pass through there in the am its AT LEAST 4-6 cars double parked. BPD couldn't roll through there and write some tickets? OH YEAH I see BPD double parked there as well ALL THE EFFIN TIME.

In general people are very quick to get heated at drivers, which I understand. It is warranted a lot of the time. However driving through that area is no picnic. I have observed the 25mph speed limit even before it went into effect. I used to live in Southie and I know the trouble areas and am very cautious. That said there are still times my heart skips a beat or I become enraged driving through there. There are so many things to look out for coming from so many directions it borders on impossible to drive through without incident. One of my pet peeves is people crossing the street on a don't walk signal when the cars/bikes have a green light. Happens all the time and this is unnecessarily boiling drivers' blood. It holds up traffic, which everyone including busses is fighting, people start honking, etc. Then these people will yell at drivers like it's their fault. Drivers make errors too, it goes both ways.
I think some fail to realize that when a driver gets to where they are going they become pedestrians too. It's not an us vs them thing. Everyone just needs to be more careful and courteous. It's a hard goal to strive for but we have to try. Lord knows the state is not going to step up and improve public transit to get cars off the road. They won't raise the gas taxes so much that it will effect driver-ship. We have to deal with the hand we're dealt and realize NO ONE is getting anywhere in a timely manner and just accept that. Repeat after me: I WILL NOT BE ON TIME.
Hope this pedestrian is alright. Hope everyone can take a breath and calm down on the crazy hurry-up-and-wait driving.

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You have some options.

1. pull over and calm down

2. grow up and get some perspective

3. stop driving if it is killing you to wait for ten seconds to get to the next traffic jam.

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I'm sure that motorist didn't wake up this morning intending to hit someone with their car, cut them some slack.

Edit: Do I really have to point out that this is a frustrated and sarcastic hot take on the joke that is traffic enforcement in this city? FFS.

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No we won't cut him some slack. I live on Preble right in that neighbordhood. It is clearly a residential neighborhood and people drive like ignorant assholes, and anyone who defends the driver is an ignorant asshole as well. Look at the impact on the windshield...what a loser hope he spends years in prison. Cars are always accelerating into red lights and refusing to stop at crosswalks for pedestrians. I have trouble crossing with my dog almost every day. This is what happens when people think they are too important to slow down and drive at a safe speed. It was just a couple months ago that a 2 year old was killed in Southie just down the road under similar circumstances. When will people wake tf up

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This is what happens when when the City of Boston did away with Pedestrian lights. At one time if the button was pushed the light would turn red and yellow and traffic would stop on all ways of the intersection. Now they have been replaced with " Drivers yield to pedestrians in crosswalk" . Drivers yield..on a green light! Now that a good one

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What if it is determined that the victim was intoxicated and stumbled into the street and the driver (who remained at the scene) was not at fault?

Because that's exactly what happened.

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You were there? You saw it happen?

Or is that your excuse in court that you are going to stick with?

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Are you breaking patient confidentiality here or just conjecturing?

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The driver will most likely just get a ticket. That's what happened to the driver who hit me with his truck while I was using a crosswalk. I spent a month in the hospital and am still not fully recovered 10 months later. There's really not much of a consequence for hitting a pedestrian as long as you stop.

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To the driver of a white pickup truck,

That was me you honked at on Day Boulevard this morning when I stopped at the flashing red light at Columbia Road.

I'm deeply sorry I caused you to be late for wherever you were going. I shouldn't have have stopped at that intersection. I should have just ignored the broken traffic lights and proceeded through the intersection anyway.

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I am by no means perfect, but I am Sick. To. Death. of being honked at for the sin of driving safely. The horn exists to alert someone to imminent danger, not to register your annoyance that the observance of traffic rules is preventing you from moving as quickly as you'd like.

Case in point, a couple weeks ago a woman in the car behind me was beeping incessantly because apparently I merged onto the heavily trafficked Rt 1 North too carefully, and then, while moving at the same pace as the rest of traffic in the right lane, was leaving a safe space between me and the car in front of me. When I finally looked in my rear view mirror to see what she was beeping about, she was making frantic "Let's Go!" rolling motions with her hand. Not only did she create an unsafe situation when I took my eyes off the road briefly because of her beeping, I also had to take my hand off the wheel to make a rude gesture at her. (see: "not perfect", above)

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Don't get me started on people blowing their horn trying to hurry me on right turn on red.
I'll go when it's safe for me to pull out. That means pedestrians aren't in the crosswalk or cars aren't going to have to hit their brakes because I pulled out.
Needless to say when the horn starts to honk I decide to wait for the green light.

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The right on red thing drives me crazy. It's still a red light, yet many drivers act like it's green.

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We’re really serious about safety and vision zero, every corner would have a no turn on red sign. But we’re not serious.

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I agree with the overall sentiment of your post, but this sounds pretty ridiculous: "Not only did she create an unsafe situation when I took my eyes off the road briefly because of her beeping".

If traffic was moving as slowly as you describe, then how could briefly taking your eyes of the road to look in your mirror create an "unsafe situation"? Did you take yourself seriously when you described it that way?

Besides the overexaggeration, I should also point out that as a SAFE driver, you SHOULD always be aware of your surroundings, which includes looking in the side & rear view mirrors on a regular basis. If you can't do that without creating an unsafe situation, maybe YOU are the one that shouldn't be on the road...

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Horns are supposed to rattle you. They're supposed to cut through to the very core of your attention and signal an all-hands-on-deck-immediately-reassess-current-actions-and-surroundings-because-something-bad-is-about-to-happen five alarm alert. Are you about to do something dangerous? Is someone else about to do something dangerous? Are you about to hit someone? Are you going to be hit?

That being said, unnecessary honking for the sake of getting someone to move a little faster is very unnerving and it could cause a driver to become more nervous than they otherwise would be and make a mistake.

This is why I'll refuse to make a right turn on red the moment someone behind me honks. I know I cannot safely proceed when someone behind me is creating so much distraction while trying to egg me on.

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"This is why I'll refuse to make a right turn on red the moment someone behind me honks. I know I cannot safely proceed when someone behind me is creating so much distraction while trying to egg me on."

Are you sure that's the reason? If you can't safely drive when someone is honking then you should not be on the road.

I'm sure the actual reason is that the person behind you is an impatient d-bag, so it's kind of fun to hold up their commute after they start honking and getting upset (and I wouldn't disagree with you if that's the reason).

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.. although it was also simply meant to lead into the joke at the end. I do my damnedest to drive exactly the way you describe, so no need to worry. Thanks though for telling someone who says they try to drive safely that they don't understand what it means to drive safely, really appreciate that.

This was slow traffic on Rt 1 btw, so we were probably going around 40mph, not crawling. Unnecessary beeping at that speed might not be a huge safety hazard, but it's distracting all the drivers within earshot so it sure isn't making things any safer.

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Just saying that hyperbole like this doesn't really do your overall point justice.

And when I think "slow traffic on route 1", I honestly assumed you literally weren't going more than ~5 mph.

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Get some real unmarked cars and drive the speed limit. When someone starts beeping and tailgaiting, pull off to the side, let them pass, then pull them over. Shouldn't be hard to catch enough people to make an impact in ten or fifteen minutes.

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Or they could, you know, set up a radar speed trap. Instead of riding around in circles waiting for something to happen.

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The point is, I think, that they would'nt have to wait. At all. The offenders are so common it would literally happen immediately, which is why it's so hard to see why more enforcement is'nt done.

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My (least) favorite is when you're crossing properly in a crosswalk at a reasonable speed and the car starts pulling ahead to hurry you along. Do you really feel the need to almost run people down because you can't wait that extra 2 seconds to hit the gas?

It's also sickening when parents have to hurry their kids along because of this, or the classic situation where the car turning right at the intersection just keeps inching their way into the crosswalk even though pedestrians have the right of way.

Say it with me folks: Just because most of MA lets you turn right on red does not mean it is the same thing as a green light.

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What does this have to do with anything?

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Try to keep up.

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Plus ZERO traffic enforcement. If you got rid of paid detailed and the only OT trough was court time, you’d see a lot more traffic enforcement. This is aside from everyone who travels, pedestrians, cyclists and drivers, ignoring all of the existing rules.

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Sunday September 2nd 11:30 am, two cars take a left turn on a red light at I Street and Broadway. This is ignorance at its finest

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jeez I dunno. Not sure I personally can find a place for that sentiment when it comes to this issue. This ain't one of those "we all make mistakes" moments.

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It's apparent that in spite of the most recent tragedy nothing has changed in our neighborhood regarding the way some people drive around here.
Bill McDermott, killed on Day Boulevard in 2013, nothing of substance in the way of correcting or preventing this from happening again was done.
The most recent death of the baby had people demanding something be done. I've seen some of the comments about complaints on less parking, bike lanes etc. None of that matters in comparing it to a human life. Period.
At one of the community meetings Amy Donovan shared some pretty awful stats. One had to do with the number of pedestrians struck by motor vehicles in a short span of a few weeks.
I've also had people beep horns, tailgate and whatnot. I just wish these people would realize that there are people in this neighborhood. It's not a throughway; it's a neighborhood.
This just isn't Day Boulevard or L Street. It's neighborhood wide. Preble Street feeds into Andrew Square. It's a very busy street and that rotary is just as dangerous as the one at Kosciusko Circle.
Slow Down!

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Question: Was this accident in a crosswalk or the middle of the street?

And as far as double parking enforcement. Doesn't help when the police are double parked all day in front of the court house. Not really setting a good example.

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Isn't this the same intersection where Patti Shebertes was killed years ago? Nothing was done then, nothing will be done now.

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Patty was my Mother In-law & the Man Pat that this just happened to is my Step Father. The man that killed Patty got away with it, not a damn thing happened. This man was just doing 40 miles down Preble St & nothing is going to happen to him either, this is why nothing will change next there are no consequences.. Pat is still unconscious & in critical condition.

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