Recent Streetsblog NYC posts about Media Watch

The 4 Biggest Sins Committed By Reporters Covering Pedestrian Deaths

By Angie Schmitt | Oct 3, 2016 | No Comments

Each year, motorists on American streets kill nearly 5,000 pedestrians. The loss of life is enormous — equivalent to 12 jumbo jets crashing with no survivors — but the steady drumbeat of pedestrian fatalities doesn’t register as an urgent public safety crisis. Maybe it would seem more urgent if the press covered pedestrian deaths as the preventable […]

When Media Outlets Cover Delivery Cyclists, They Rarely Talk to Them

By David Meyer | Jul 29, 2016 | 13 Comments

NYC’s mostly-immigrant food delivery cyclists don’t have it easy, working on car-centric streets through all sorts of weather, all while under pressure to make their deliveries as quickly as possible. But media coverage of delivery cyclists tends to dehumanize them, failing to convey their perspective or consider the difficult working conditions they contend with. That’s the conclusion […]

Vox Pulls Back the Curtain on “Scam” to Save Lives With Red Light Cameras

By Angie Schmitt | Jul 19, 2016 | No Comments

You can usually count on Vox for accurate, research-based explainers of public policy issues. That’s why the new Vox video on red light cameras is so monumentally disappointing. Researchers have established that red light cameras make streets safer by reducing potentially fatal T-bone collisions, though they do lead to more rear-end crashes, which tend not to be very serious. […]

Victim-Blaming Commences After Bruckner Boulevard Claims Another Life

By Brad Aaron | Jul 11, 2016 | 20 Comments

A motorist struck and killed a man last night on Bruckner Boulevard, a Bronx street designed to facilitate speeding and one of the borough’s most dangerous places to walk. The victim was attempting to cross Bruckner near East 149th Street at around 12:30 a.m. Monday when he was hit by the driver of a BMW […]

How to Counter the Victim-Blaming Impulse After a Traffic Crash

By Angie Schmitt | Jun 27, 2016 | No Comments

When a driver strikes someone walking or biking, the tendency to blame the victim runs deep. Ask Raquel Nelson, who lost her young son to a hit-and-run driver, then got convicted for vehicular homicide, even though she was just trying to walk across the street with her children from a bus stop to her home. Or […]

Truck Driver Kills Cyclist Leah Sylvain in Bushwick — Victim-Blaming Ensues

By David Meyer | Jun 7, 2016 | 172 Comments

A fuel truck driver struck and killed Leah Sylvain, 27, as she was biking on Evergreen Avenue in Bushwick this morning. Sylvain was traveling north in the bike lane when Joseph Cherry, also traveling north, turned his truck to the left across her path, fatally injuring her. Sylvain was lying on the road with head trauma when police […]

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