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Car slams into another Roslindale building; two pedestrians hit, one dies
By adamg on Sun, 03/26/2023 - 5:44pm
Police, firefighters and EMTs responded to 3968 Washington St. shortly before 5:10 p.m. for a crash that left one pedestrian dead, another injured and the building in need of emergency stabilization.
One of the pedestrians was hurt badly enough to have the homicide and fatal-accident reconstruction units called in. Live Boston reports that person died.
Police remained on scene until well past 9:30 p.m., at first for extrication of the victims and an investigation, later to stand guard until a crew could come in to try to stabilize the heavily damaged residential building.
Traffic, including MBTA buses, were diverted around the scene.
It's the second time today a driver hit a Roslindale building, although the first incident did not result in serious injuries.
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Comments
LOL Vision Zero
I work right off this stretch of Washington Street, and it’s treated like a drag strip by many drivers. The city needs to do something to calm traffic through this thickly settled residential neighborhood and the same with Rozzie Square.
Automated enforcement
Given the desire to keep police / driver interactions to a minimum, I can't think of anything other than automated enforcement (cameras) to the lawlessness on Boston's roads (speeding, running the red lights, other moving violations).
From what I understand, however, automated enforcement will require quite legislative change first, before any work/testing can even begin.
The most effective traffic
The most effective traffic calming technique is redesigning the road. Studies show drivers don't regulate speed based on posted limits or threat of enforcement but by how safe they feel traveling at a given speed in the environment.
TLDR multiple wide lanes on a straight road = faster driving, single and narrow lanes with obstacles like curves or raised crossings = slower driving.
This stretch of Washington
This stretch of Washington does not have multiple wide lanes.
There's plenty of road
There's plenty of road features that have been proven to slow traffic. Wavy lane marker lines, speed bumps, sections where the road gets more narrow. These are solved problems.
Think outside the box
Outlaw pedestrians.
Give them a choice.
The coffin box or else.
We have far too many of them anyway. Like ants at a picnic. Bipedal rats, is all they are.
I am also familiar with this road
I walk it constantly. This happened right by where the double homicide happened over 10 years ago.
No, it this stretch of road is not "treated like a drag strip by many drivers." This one driver, most likely, was speeding, but it's not easy to get up to a high speed on this road outside of the overnight hours.
Of course, prayers to the victims and their families.
This crash happened in daylight.
At a time of day when Washington is crowded with drivers.I’m also familiar with this intersection and disagree with you.
My meaningless prayers are for you in the hope the scales fall off your eyes someday.
"Crowded with drivers"
So in other words, there was traffic. I'm going to doubt you are familiar with this stretch of Washington Street if you think cars drag racing when there's traffic.
As for your final sentence, you are just showing how little you actually care about people. You just hate cars and are using the casualties as an excuse to hate on motor vehicles.
Sorry, Car.
But those are the brakes.
I actually live right here
I actually live right here and the speed and recklessness is downright scary. This tragedy and others are the point - we should implement traffic calming measures to try to prevent them.
As an outside observer...
I certainly don't have the local knowledge to speak on this but when 3 different people are saying something counter to your observations, all your really saying is defensive car apologia and making baseless personal attacks.
I mean this is the third comment on this very post that you've made to that effect.
Your counting is off
And honestly, I severely doubt Lee goes anywhere near this location on a regular basis. I go down this road, usually on foot and yes where the victims were hit, on a daily basis. Do I find it hard to believe that a car traveling at a high rate of speed hit 2 people? No. Do I think that speeding is a problem on this road? Let me put it to you this way. The road is designed for 30 MPH. Without traffic, one could probably do 35. With traffic, you are talking 25-30 if you were lucky even before the speed limit was reduced.
"I severely doubt" is a baseless assumption
Here are the 3 different people are saying something counter to your observations
https://www.universalhub.com/comment/926729#comment-926729
https://www.universalhub.com/comment/926785#comment-926785
https://www.universalhub.com/comment/926791#comment-926791
If you meant the comments you had made at that point time, it was in fact 3.
The rest of the word salad is just deflecting away from that.
Iamblued, Lee, and…
???????
1 + 1 = what?
And Angry Dan
Of course it's West Roxbury rereading it but whatever, 2 is more than just you.
Edit: worth saying I was wrong, healthy to do that.
You know what you are?
A good person with your edit. All of us miss something from time to time. It happens. Thanks for noting the error.
As for Washington Street, I'm on that stretch every day. Usually on foot. Sometimes in a car. Once and a while on a bus. And you may be surprised that I do from time to time take a Blue Bike to the Square from Forest Hills or, when the Orange Line is very bad, Back Bay. Hyde Park Avenue on the opposite side of the tracks, being 2 lanes in each direction, is more of a speedway. Washington Street is not that bad, this crash notwithstanding. I don't get this one- hitting a guy inside a building is a special level of mayhem.
“And honestly, I severely
“And honestly, I severely doubt Lee goes anywhere near this location on a regular basis.”
I severely doubt you’ve ever been there. Honestly.
I mean, except
That I referenced what happened next door over 10 years ago, as I walk down this bit of sidewalk almost daily and for the longest time took a second to think about the two people gunned down in the third floor apartment.
I mean, if you did traverse this street on a constant basis, you'd know other than overnight hours, there's no way one could characterize the road as a drag strip. It's so congested that they had to add bus lanes.
Depends a great deal on what the clock says
I bike this stretch of Washington often, and usually am faster than the cars. But that is during rush hour, when congestion is very high. This didn't happen during rush hour. Outside of a few hours in the morning and a few hours in the evening Monday through Friday, it's a very straight road without so much traffic between Furth Road and Ukraine Way. I have seen people driving 50 or faster under such conditions.
Waquiot is speaking from their experience at the time of their daily run, not necessarily reflective of the other 150 hours each week.
Thoughts and Prayers
I guess more thoughts and prayers are needed for the car.
Weed and texting
If you're someone who walks, bikes, or runs a lot on local roads, this is not a shock to you. Weed smoke pours out of cars regularly and drivers are always on their phones. And police do nothing.
Oh, so now all the car issues
Oh, so now all the car issues are b/c of stoners and not the drunks that killed 11,600 ppl in 2022?
I feel very bad for the victims and their families. This is preventable it's just that the cops and drivers don't give a shit and there is ZERO traffic enforcement.
You take your life into your hands every time you're a pedestrian or biker.
This is why red light and
This is why red light and speed cameras are not the answer.
If someone could invent a texting while driving camera, I'd support that.
So the Square Root driver just got away with it, right?
Been a few months, that person drove their car into a building and partially destroyed it and there's no fine for dangerous operation, no arrest for DUI or speeding or anything? Was the driver an off duty cop of something? It's weird that this wasn't considered to be a criminal offense unless 'stuck accelerator pedal' is an actual valid excuse.
"Got away with it"?
Yeah, there's not need for an investigation, and a trial is an outdated concept. Prison now!
I was at the Square Root for
I was at the Square Root for a concert a month after this, and I couldn't help noticing how a multi lane street with no traffic lights just curves right into the front door of the bar/cafe. It does look like a drag strip, and I fear for anyone who sits by the window in that place.
It really WAS just an accident
I heard from people who know the driver, that he is an upstanding person, who was not high or drunk and, yes, the accelerator just got stuck.
If there is no investigation
If there is no investigation how do we know how fast he was going before the accelerator got stuck? I highly doubt he was doing 25...I almost got hit there yesterday...again.
You know cops do
You know cops do investigations all the time that either don't get sent to the newspapers or the newspapers choose not to publish because it's not fundamentally that interesting, right? Sometimes stuff happens and you not knowing about it doesn't mean it's a cover up or faked, it just means you didn't hear about it.
Do a FOIA request for any records related to the crash. There will be, I can almost guarantee you, some kind of investigation.
Yes, the police report backs
Yes, the police report backs that assertion.
No, it didn't
That's some apologist BS. Accelerators don't get stuck unless there's an inattentive foot pushing down on them. Cut the crap. It was probably an upstanding person who was texting that they were going to be late to read to the blind orphans, right? Please.
How are we going
to slow traffic down? Traffic calming only does so much. We need enforcement and consequences. People are driving so recklessly these days.
Query...
Does the BPD even have a division that is actually devoted to traffic law enforcement? Over the course of 26+ years we've seen particular patrol officers who seemed to occasionally do this around Roslindale -- but never any hint of systematic enforcement.
They were there today
Blocking the bus lane on the opposite side of the street. Meanwhile, traffic inbound was backed up between the Arborway and Archdale at 5:30 pm because taking down the overpass was going to make things better.
I don't think anyone seriously claimed....
... that taking down the Overpass was going to "make things better" in terms of traffic. Supposedly -- It was less expensive, was supposed to be better for pedestrians and bicyclists and "would really not be all that much worse" for traffic.
In any event, nominally sort of directing traffic is not the same as ticketing folks for speeding, running red lights and stop signs, and driving too fast, etc.
Then they should have said it was cheap and only slightly worse
https://www.hntb.com/projects/the-casey-arborway/ doesn't just predict that it would improve traffic. It declares, past-tense after the project was completed, the ELIMINATION of traffic backups:
"A busway was relocated and expanded, and route locations, pickup and drop-off points consolidated, eliminating traffic backups in surrounding neighborhoods."
It also says:
"Reconnected Boston’s historic Emerald Necklace
Improved and expanded multiple transit modes
Created new and safer pedestrian and bicycle pathways
Simplified at-grade roadway network"
I disagree on all 4 points. This does not feel safe to cross on foot, nor like a reconnected Emerald Necklace, nor simplified, nor improved for transit when I'm sitting in the bus stuck in the new jam or walking the long zigzag path past where the buses used to stop.
But hey, they managed to add 7 miles of bike and pedestrian paths on the 0.6 miles of road between the Arborway jughandle and Forest Hills Ave, so I guess that's a reason to declare success.
Facing vehicle traffic
I started crossing the street to avoid having my back to traffic when I'm on Centre or Spring St. in West Roxbury. I hope if I'm facing traffic I may have a chance to dodge these idiots.
I've worked on an aircraft carrier flight deck and I cycle in city traffic so my situational awareness is higher than most but I've still had drivers catch me by surprise while I'm walking on the sidewalk or in a crosswalk. They can bang a left at speed from the opposite side of the street and come flying across and hit you before you know it.
This is such a violent strip
This is such a violent strip of road. Centre into Spring is a hotbed for vehicular aggression. There is a history of horrific accidents here and it seems to go unnoticed until the next school kid is hit in a crosswalk by a car going 40mph to beat the red light.
I've never heard of anyone
I've never heard of anyone crossing the street so they can walk facing traffic...on the sidewalk. How does that help? You'd have a better view of traffic from one direction turning into driveways and side streets, at the expense of not seeing the other direction. And you'd be adding two additional crossings of the street itself, and possibly walking out of your way to get to the crosswalk.
These buildings think they
These buildings think they own the road nowadays it's gotten out of control