Twin Cities Streets for People

Another Twin Cities streets fatality, as a woman was killed by the driver of a garbage truck while walking her dog near a park in downtown Saint Paul this morning. This crash continues a deadly summer trend, with an elderly woman killed by an ambulance earlier this week, a man killed by a car while waiting for the bus earlier this month, and a cyclist and pedestrian killed along Park Avenue last month. Read more >

This post from Across the Great Divide made me think about how people report car crashes, particularly when a pedestrian, bicyclist, or driver dies in the crash. Do reporters call it an "accident" or a "crash"? Do they say that the person "was killed" or that the person "died"?

I remember reading recently about an attorney general in Florida who made headlines by trying to get drivers tried for murder instead of for vehicular homocide, in the interest of reducing inattentive driving. But it poses the question: if you are texting and speeding while driving a car, and hit and kill someone on a bicycle, are you guilty of murder? Or was it just an accident? Read more >