Posts Tagged → reckless
Careless speeding & Poor traffic controls take another friend
We lost a most wonderful friend yesterday afternoon. One of the nicest people you could ever meet in your life, needlessly lost her life, while trying to cross North Front Street in Harrisburg.
Three factors caused Dr. Holly Engelman (55 YO) to be struck and immediately killed by a car: Careless driving, at speed far above what is posted (40 MPH transitioning to 35 MPH), in a marked crosswalk that lacks sufficient traffic controls to make drivers slow down and give the occasional pedestrian the right of way.
The driver whose car collided with Holly as she crossed within the crosswalk was young, driving way too damned fast, like almost everyone drives these days. And instead of seeing the adjoining lane blocked by a car waiting for Holly to make her way across Front Street, and taking note of it, her killer simply sped around it.
As Holly stepped past the stopped car, she was hit by the other car. While she was in the marked crosswalk.
Yes, this crosswalk at Vaughn and Front Street is marked on the pavement, and yes, it has signs on both sides, and yes, it has a flashing light and signs hanging over the crosswalk. But what it does not have is a couple rumble strips on both sides. Rumble strips, or speed bumps, can force drivers to slow down, by dint of the discomfort they cause when driven over at high speed. If designed to really slow a car down, they will immediately remove the tailpipe when hit at high speed.
Otherwise, these crosswalks are dangerous enticements, death traps that promise safety, but deliver death and injury.
I always drive the speed limit on Front Street. It is a residential street and also a low speed artery into and out of Harrisburg City. And yet, no matter where I enter Front Street, with however much lead time between me and approaching traffic, my doors are always blown off by passing vehicles that are going between fifty and sixty MPH. Some faster than this. Never fails, everyone is in a huge hurry to get into Harrisburg or out of it.
Plenty of tailgating, plenty of aggressive zooming up behind a vehicle that is already going the posted speed limit. As if Front Street is a race track, the Autobahn, a highway. But it is none of those things. Front Street runs along the scenic Susquehanna River, and right along the walking/ biking path above the river bank. Very little margin for error in this corridor, really no room for high speeds.
And yet, drivers speed there, and crash there, all the time.
There is no police presence on Front Street. Zero speed enforcement. None, ever. Not even at this one crosswalk.
Holly was a gentle, kind, beautiful person, with an uninhibited, attention-grabbing Woody Woodpecker laugh that made everyone around her laugh with her. Big time community volunteer, while also holding down a regular science job. She had a PhD in some polysyllabic hard science field that involved test tubes, lab rats, genes, big buildings, whatever, the whole gemish. Brilliant person, always positive to be around. Her two sons are good kids, smart in their own rights, and also hard working. Ditto her husband Andrew.
There is no replacing a Holly when something like this avoidable killing “accident” takes place. Holly was one of a kind, a super person of tiny stature who gave much more back to the community and society around her than her tiny size would indicate. She was one of the Princess of Patience’s best friends here in Harrisburg, and our home has been in mourning all day.
Folks, slow down in your vehicles. I do not understand why the hell so many people routinely drive like a bat out of hell in parking lots, or on residential streets, where people are around and where the margins for error are tiny. Nothing “pressing” in your life or mine is worth taking someone else’s life over. Driving fast in these enclosed spaces isn’t getting you anywhere any faster, but your risk factors are going through the roof.
And for those who will debate me on this, consider the young lady driver who killed our friend Holly. She likely faces the serious charge of manslaughter, in addition to reckless driving, etc etc. Her young life will never be the same, and will probably be much worse for a long period of time, simply because she was in too much of a hurry to slow down for Holly walking in the crosswalk.
In 2019, a young guy crashed into my truck’s rear, at pretty high speed, as I was stopped at a red light in Lewisburg. For about forty miles on our drive up Route 15, I had watched him staring at the dumb phone in his lap. He kept on slowing down as he became more absorbed in what he later told me was “the stupidest stuff.” And he would then suddenly speed up when he realized that other vehicles were passing him. He yo-yo’d like this for forty miles, and never once saw me waving to him, looking at him, trying to get his attention. He totaled his brand new Mustang, and hurt me.
Nothing on your social media feed is worth killing a Holly over, and if something on your phone really is so important, then pull off the road and give it your full attention. You, me, Holly, and the other person on your other end will all benefit.
Goodbye, dear Holly, sweet Holly, smart and humble and gentle Holly, mom Holly, doctor Holly, wife Holly, good friend Holly. We miss you very much.
UPDATE: Local news is covering this well. Here is a good example, and the reader comments are illuminating.
The scene of the crime. Killing a pedestrian here is no “accident.” It is negligent homicide, manslaughter.
How many signs and lights do drivers need? Apparently a lot
Another view. Northbound. People blasted through here while I tried to cross. Supposed to yield, a couple vehicles stopped, but most paid no mind
Is this the skid mark at the strike location?
Dr. Holly Engelman, on the left, as always
Scoring cheap political points actually costs more than you and I can afford
Trying to score cheap political points seems attractive, because it looks cheap and low-cost. A lot of it has been going on lately, but it actually has a huge cost. It has a huge cost to everyone else as collateral damage victims, and in a just world it should have a boomerang cost on its progenitors.
Scoring cheap political points usually means ascribing blame or responsibility for something the object or person in actuality bears no responsibility for. In other words, it is cheap because it is wrong and unfair.
Over the past two years, attempt after attempt has been made by the mainstream media, and its one political party ally, to ascribe and pin onto Donald Trump responsibility for everything from bad breath to Muslim terrorism to dog bites to you-name-it, they have alleged it.
Most recently, cheap political points were attempted on Judge Kavanaugh, who was at first accused at the 11th hour of his nomination of having momentarily rough-housed as a teenager, 35 years ago, with a female classmate (Blasey Ford). From that one foggy accusation, foggy because Blasey Ford could not recall the date, the day, the time, or the place, and the people she called as witnesses all strongly disagreed with her, came a cascade of increasingly outlandish accusations. Suddenly on TV and news outlets everywhere, Kavanaugh was claimed by various activists and “news” personalities to have been a rapist, a serial rapist, and finally guilty of perjury.
None of this made any sense when squared up with the actual personal history of Judge Kavanaugh. No evidence was ever presented for any of it; it was all just hype and hysteria. It was just a cheap attempt to create a black cloud over Kavanaugh, over Donald Trump, because he nominated Kavanaugh, and over the GOP, because they controlled his future as a nominee. Now he is Justice Kavanaugh on the US Supreme Court, because none of the outlandish cheap political points added up to anything, and the American People didn’t buy the hype.
In that process, the Democrat Party leadership was almost universally revealed to be shameless whores, partisans willing to say and do anything to try to move the public opinion needle more into their favor. Even if it involved destroying the public’s faith in the carefully constructed political system that defines our unique nation.
Then there was the fake “attempted bombing” of a dozen leading Democrats and their financial supporters. Fake because none of the “bombs” were actually functional bombs. None exploded, and as far as we can tell from the information released, none of them could explode. The “bombs” were so outlandishly fake, and the whole effort was so outlandishly amateurish, and the facts were not in, and yet the Democrat Party again began trying to immediately blame Donald Trump, with some people actually saying that Trump ordered the bombs to be sent. Meanwhile, many Americans actually began blaming the Democrat Party for once again ham-handedly trying to gin up false sympathy for their increasingly tarnished brand, to move the public opinion needle in their favor.
And now there is something truly horrendous, a massacre yesterday, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, of eleven elderly synagogue members simply praying to God and harming no one. A deranged lunatic anti-Trump Democrat walked in, screamed “All Jews must die,” and began shooting people.
Within hours, some leftwing Jewish organizations and individuals went into overdrive, using the innocent victims to try to score cheap political points against Donald Trump, the GOP, law-abiding American gun owners, Christians, and just about everyone else they disagree with on some political point or another. Some actually accused Trump of having created an atmosphere and environment conducive and even productive for this sort of attack, which is beyond over-reach. It is simply the same old hysteria we saw with the Kavanaugh smear and the fake bombs, except now resting on the backs of murdered Jewish people.
Out of this latest attempt at cheap political points, the most egregious example is the public statement from the very, very mis-named “Pennsylvania Jewish Coalition.”
There is zero about this group that is a coalition, as coalitions are generally made up of various different parts of groups or philosophies. The PJC represents the farthest left view and political aspirations that can be found in the American Jewish community. More than anything, this is a group of hardcore Bolsheviks; liberal Jews at war with free speech, democracy, capitalism, the US Constitution, lawful private gun ownership. Pretty much everything good that America is or has been, the PJC denigrates.
So, as one might expect, the Pennsylvania Jewish Coalition statement on the Pittsburgh massacre tries to score cheap political points on gun owners and border security advocates, especially, and yet is so shrill and inflammatory that it crosses over into recklessness, because it is sure to paint all Jews with the same insane brush. Thereby inviting more pushback against all Jews.
Naturally, normal Americans are both horrified at the massacre and bristling with indignation that they had anything to do with it. By using the typical crybully tactic and attacking normal Americans and ascribing blame for the massacre to them and their favored politician, Donald Trump, groups like the PJC are alienating the very people they need to persuade. But, like the Democrat Party leaders, the PJC is willing to burn down their own broader community’s credibility in the pursuit of cheap political points.
Election Day, November 6th, cannot come soon enough. If God is just, it will be a day of reckoning and justice for the kooks that are intent on burning down America because they don’t control it.
It is time for normal Americans, the so-called swing voters, the Independents (and how I wish I could register as an Independent), to take note of who is really pushing America to the brink. To take note of who is really up-ending our otherwise calm and happy nation. To pay back in like political currency those who have refused to accept the legitimate results of November 2016, and who have sought to destroy America because they cannot control her.
I rarely advocate for voting straight party ticket, and I rarely do it myself. But this year, a big Republican win over the insane voices and destructive forces from the Democrat Left is necessary to demonstrate that there is a God, and that there is retribution for having used and abused the American People so badly.
Vote straight Republican, even if you never do it again in your life. Now is the time, this is the year.
Ukraine: Obama batting zero, his cheering section still loud
Math was not always my strongest interest (although I did self-learn calculus in graduate school), so disregard the headline here. Obama’s foreign policy is such a catastrophic failure that he is way in the negatives; he is not at zero. Being at Zero would actually be a success.
Here is a partial list of countries and peoples seeking freedom from tyranny who have had the rug of American promises pulled out from underneath them by Obama:
Poland (defensive missiles).
Georgia (South Ossetia, invaded by Russia).
Israel.
Iranian citizens.
Syrian citizens.
And now it’s Ukraine that has learned the hard lesson of Obama’s recklessness. Whatever promises were made to get Ukraine’s nuclear weapons, like protecting Ukraine from Russian imperialism, have been openly tossed out the window by an Obama administration bent on destroying America from within. Wrecking America’s international standing is one way to destroy America at home.
Allowing aggressive imperial powers like Russia, China, and Iran to willfully expand their spheres of influence and domination lets Obama off the “aggressor” hook. He can claim he’s no “warmonger.” But his inaction and failure to live up to his own red lines and promises of American protection have created a vacuum into which the aggressors, the real warmongers, have stepped.
Growing up in a pacifist household, I used to ask the hard questions that no one could answer, like Why should someone not actively oppose an Adolph Hitler and a Nazi Germany? Answers were hard to come by, because there are no substantive answers to these questions.
Pacifism is evil because it legitimizes evil. Pacifism equates doing nothing with active aggression, imperialism, domination, subjugation, tyranny and all the barbaric cruelty that goes along with them. By failing to act, by failing to confront evil in a meaningful way, pacifists lend credibility to the aggressors. If Russian imperialism in the form of subjugating Ukraine is not confronted and thwarted, then it must not be so bad. Such is the message from Obama and other pacifists, intended or unintended.
This unwillingness to act creates a vacuum, and this vacuum is seen correctly as weakness. It invites even more aggression. History is replete with examples, so an Obama would have to willfully ignore the obvious historical truth in order to do what he is doing (and not doing) now.
I know Obama has his cheering section. That is the greatest sadness of all, because those same people claim to be ethical, humane, loving. So strong is the messianic love for this charlatan among his believers, that they will forgive and forget his greatest deceptions, his greatest failures, the trail of destruction and misery in his wake. Other people, other families, then pay with their lives, at best to be the subjects of pity by groups like OxFam and Rotary, intent on picking up the few broken pieces later on.
For shame.