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Comment by maxhallinan | Hacker News Reader

>If someone fires a gun randomly down the street, not aiming at anyone, but happens to hit someone, they'd certainly be arrested. Drive a multi-thousand-pound projectile down the street, kill someone, and it's just an "accident".

That is not the correct analogy for this accident. The correct analogy is "Someone runs across a live firing range." The shooters would not be charged.

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If this analogy is accurate, isn't it absurd that many/most of us live right next to a "live firing range" with no safety barriers?

We know that kids are unpredictable, adults get distracted, and reducing vehicle speed reduces the chance of a collision being fatal: http://www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention/publications/r...

We don't need to accept that roads are deadly places for non-drivers. We should strive to make our environment more liveable - by changing road design, vehicle safety features and driver attitudes - and this includes enforcement.

> If this analogy is accurate, isn't it absurd that many/most of us live right next to a "live firing range" with no safety barriers?

It's accurate from a safety perspective, but otherwise a roadway is not like a firing range.

… which probably should be further modified to "Someone runs across a live firing range in front of a row of houses where kids live".

Why should the street be a live firing range in the first place?.

The streets are paid for by every citizen, yet pedestrians have to adapt to car traffic, even though they are not the ones carrying a weapon.

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