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by chaps 1202 days ago
Streetsblog has a tendency to use infrequent/irrelevant traffic deaths and such to paint pictures about wider things. Things like, using hit and runs at stop signs to argue about speed limits. They did that a lot in Chicago when the city was pushing to raise the speed camera sensitivity from 10mph to 5mph. It makes it really difficult to take their writing (about genuine problems) seriously.
2 comments

> Things like, using hit and runs at stop signs to argue about speed limits.

That doesn't sound irrelevant to me. Drivers around my area have a tendency to not quite stop at stop signs before rolling into the crosswalk. If they're going slower they have more ability to react to a pedestrian stepping out into the crosswalk.

> infrequent/irrelevant traffic deaths

I’m all onboard the accuracy train with you, but I must say that describing any kind of traffic death as “irrelevant” seems very cold. Every person that dies on the road matters.

Of course, but when you stretch the truth, you lose the message and lose the people you need to reach the most. To me, that sort of truth stretching is way colder than I could ever be.