Originally Posted by
base2
Iride01 Good point about MADD making inroads with holding bars and bar-tenders accountable for the actions of the patrons they excessively serve.
Bringing this back to safety, why not hold road engineers responsible for how people use the product they design? It seems to me a NTSB level investivation and list of recommended best practices to avoid systemic fatal flaws in design or processes is appropriate. How many aviation, rail, or maritime fatality accidents are there? Very few. Right now, any investigation is left up to well meaning law enforcement (who are not engineers) to find fault with the affected parties, not root cause analysis. Until we get this level of scrutiny and hold road engineers responsible for the use/misuse of their designs we're merely chasing our tails. The road design failed to protect vulnerable road users
and the road design failed to signify the risk excessive speed and inattention posed to others to the driver so that he could operate his vehicle in an appropriate manner with due care and caution of the consequences.
Adding on to the above, our system of urban planning guarantees that whatever it is that you need is a long way away from where you are. This necessarily means that community gathering spaces where you can meet and socialize with people of different socioeconomic strata requires driving. We wonder why there is a drinking and driving problem? The two go hand-in-hand by design.
Proper infrastructure design and urban planning would have eliminated the opportunity for this driver to become a murderous felon.
The accountability loop is broken. Is that a bug or a feature of the system? We have a long ways to go.
In my first career, I spent a notable amount of my professional time in legal meetings or depositions arising from claims or lawsuits against the agency I worked for alleging defective design, maintenance, or other activity. If an agency doesn't follow accepted guidelines in building or maintaining a roadway, in states such as Arizona it's difficult for an agency not to be found liable. If a professional engineer was grossly negligent, they could see their registration suspended or revoked. That being said, the crash location to my knowledge meets all guidelines in effect at the time of construction, and current guidance as well.
You bring in "urban planning". For reference, this crash occurred in a rural and agricultural / desert area.
Let's say that the local jurisdictions decide to install separated cycletracks or sidepaths along the entire WVCC training loop route to reduce the risk of crashes of this type in between intersections and driveways. A standard cycletrack or sidepath is typically 5-8 feet in width per direction. The WVCC ride is reportedly a very fast-paced one, at about 20 mph. To accommodate this speed, the facility would likely need to be a full travel lane wide per direction (10-14 ft). Otherwise, the riders would likely choose different facilities or roadways so they can maintain the pace at which they intend to legally ride and train. And whether it is 5 ft or 14 ft wide, these facilities aren't cheap, and installing them only on the WVCC loop for example would still cost tens of millions of dollars. Where would this funding come from? And the unfortunate fact is that even if they were installed, they probably would not be well-maintained, especially in the rural desert and agricultural areas. If past experience is a guide, they could be unusable in a matter of months due to sand, gravel, debris, weeds, thorns, glass, or other accumulating items. Installing separated facilities creates an expectation of a serious commitment to maintenance, which with current budgets and staffing would probably not happen, especially in rural areas.