I’d say that both of the injustices we mention are different ways of saying the same thing — cars are given too much freedom to the exclusion of other modes.

I was addressing the plight of people who can’t drive in general. It just happened to be in the thread about the garbage truck driver, but you’re right, what I said isn’t applicable in that case.

I think there’s almost twice as many traffic deaths in New York City every year as there are homicides.

No. Five year figures (2002-6) record 1,811 homicides by firearm, 1,060 unintentional deaths of pedestrians, 933 unintentional deaths in motor vehicles, and 580 homicides by cutting. There are also 372 suicides by firearm.

Both the firearm totals and the homicide totals outnumber traffic deaths.

Of course, you bring up a point we all agree with here. We need to build places where owning and driving a motor vehicle is not a requirement for making a living.

Although, I certainly can’t agree with your idea “the real injustice”. I’ll say it again, the “real injustice” is when people can’t walk across a street without putting their lives on the line.

Re: this garbage truck driver – he worked in New York City. There are over a million ways to make a living in New York City that do not require the operation of a motor vehicle.

Nobody’s “excluding” anyone here.

I’ll get personal here for a bit. I lost a bunch of my hearing to meningitis over a decade ago. I don’t work too well on phones. I haven’t sued the City of Portland because they won’t let me work as a police or 911 dispatcher.

Should I?

Do you consider it an injustice that I’m “excluded” from working as a 911 operator?

Let’s leave aside the p.c. bullshit and insert some common sense here, eh?

“What is the point of a driver’s license, anyhow?” asks Brent, above. To make money for the state, obviously.

Operating a car (or a garbage truck, in this case) is not a civil or a human right, and if one is physically incapable of handling same in a safe manner, they do not and should not receive that privilege.

You wanna know what’s an injustice? An injustice is that Jacqueline Timmins and Andrew Hardie lost their lives simply from walking across a street, and their six children no longer have parents. Their sisters and brothers no longer have a sibling, their parents no longer have a child, their grandchildren will never know grandma or grandpa. What about Jacqueline Timmins’ and Andrew Hardie’s “livings”? Or their lives, period?

My condolences to what you and others have to go through, but again – you wanna talk about a “deadly menace”? How about tons of steel smashing into a human body at 30 or 40 or 50 miles an hour or more? For that matter, even being hit at 3 or 4 miles an hour can cause serious injury or death.

This happens every day in America, and it’s time for it to stop.

It’s not willful intent, it’s criminal negligence. Same thing as far as the dead folks are concerned. Shut up and get out.

Can the prosecutor, judge, jury & your tabloid paper certainly say that the boy quit taking his anti-seizure medications so he could die from his Epileptic seizures?

No, I don’t think so.

Struggling with this deadly menace, Epilepsy, for the last 10 years, no prosecutor, judge, jury or tabloid paper is going to tell me, I’m having seizures because I’m NOT taking my medications. I know what I’m going through, more than those wicked-sadist clowns who pry on misery of others.

The same applies for the New York garbage truck hauler who had seizures, while he was desperately trying to make a living just like you & killed two British tourists.
As if the injustice of living with Epilepsy was not unbearable enough, the wicked sadist prosecutor, jury & judge sentenced the epileptic man to more than 20 years, as if the driver made “willful intent” to murder the tourists.
To find out the hardships of Epilepsy patients, search all over the Internet, you will find people having seizures, strokes (medical problems) & getting involved in car accidents.
The injustice is, some get lynched for their unfortunate medical disorders while some are treated like patients & get a free pass to live on with their lives.
This epileptic man should fight the injustice all the way to supreme court.
After all, injustice against one is injustice against everyone.

Another Epileptic,
http://www.myspace.com/myseizures

Mandatory. No options for the judges. No mitigating circumstances. No forgiveness.

The rub is that our mayor is supposed to get it. Isn’t he a public health guy? (endowed the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health; showed leadership on the smoking ban and trans-fat ban, etc…) Where is the leadership here?

This is a public health crisis: Traffic accidents were the 10th-leading cause of death in the world in 2004, behind lung cancer and ahead of diabetes, and they are on track to become the fifth-leading cause by 2030 — that’s from a 2009 report by the World Health Organization, which you can read about here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/15/AR2009061501544.html

This needs to be taken seriously.