Deaf Journalists

This story at MSNBC illustrates how many in the media have a huge blind spot — or in keeping with my title theme, are tone deaf — regarding traffic crashes.

This story made the news of course because bystanders did nothing, but it ignores the more common problem.

The subtitle reads:

“He was mostly ignored by witnesses after accident in Conn.”

Down the page a few paragraphs is this quote from the son of the crash victim:

“You know people keep calling it an accident,” Arce said Tuesday. “It was not an accident. It was a crime.”

And he is absolutely right.  The motorists were passing illegally, and neither of them stopped.  This crash was not an “accident.”  It was a crime even if the drivers hadn’t fled the scene.

I try not to think conspiratorially; I don’t think the subhead is intentionally misleading.  They’re just fully immersed in the automotive culture.  The “real crimes” in their eyes seems to be that the drivers left the scene and the bystanders did nothing.  But as for the wrong-way driving resulting in the striking of an elderly man?  “Hey.  Stuff happens. What can we say?”

Posted in Cars, Safety, Traffic Law