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Date: Wed, 24 May 2000
Montgomery Journal.
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A volatile mix
At the rate pedestrians and bicyclists are getting hit by
cars in Montgomery County, political leaders might want to
forget about banning guns and think about banning cars
instead. Or perhaps banning pedestrians and bicyclists.
Last year, 18 pedestrians and bicyclists died in Montgomery
County in accidents with cars. (In comparison, the county
had 13 homicides.) Only three other jurisdictions in
Maryland had more pedestrians killed; none had more
cyclists killed.
And those figures don't include some of the more horrific
accidents: the 5-year-old boy hit by a car and dragged for
blocks through Silver Spring two months ago, for example,
or the 13-year-old boy crushed between two cars while
crossing Veirs Mill Road just last weekend. Both boys
survived, but both accidents were truly terrible - as most
accidents involving a vehicle and a person are.
The trick is preventing those accidents. And it is tricky,
since in so many parts of Montgomery County cars rule the
roads, and anyone who attempts to get around by any other
method is in for a difficult journey. Have you ever tried,
for example, to cross Rockville Pike from one shopping
center to another? You might feel like the Eddie Murphy
character in the movie ``Bowfinger," who has to race across
a highway, terrified, for a scene in a ``B" movie. Or, you
might feel like calling a cab.
Still, solutions exist. Cars and pedestrians and bicyclists
can co-exist, at least better than they do now.
A partial solution is more pedestrian-friendly roads. That
means more and wider crosswalks and more traffic lights
where pedestrians often cross. It means more pedestrian
bridges over busy highways and more and wider sidewalks.
And it means more bicycle lanes.
Just as important, there's common courtesy and good sense,
two attributes that could, if more frequently employed, go
a long way toward solving this and many other problems,
particularly problems on the roads.
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