How could Overland Park driver who plowed into four schoolchildren only get a ticket?
When a vehicle runs a red light, crashes into another car and leaps over a curb and into four children walking to school, it’s a watershed moment. Watershed moments exist to change things.
But exactly what will change after the above calamity at 87th and Grant streets in Overland Park on Oct. 24? Answer: Nothing will change unless people make it happen. In this case, those people are state lawmakers and the driving public.
The onus is now on them all to do their jobs.
Kansas lawmakers must be the leaders they hold themselves out to be, and come together after the first of the year to increase the punishment and deterrent effect of red-light laws, particularly when people are injured.
As the victims thankfully recover — although maddeningly, a 6-year-old girl is struggling to learn how to walk again — local residents and national observers have been in near revolt after learning that the driver who allegedly caused the catastrophic accident, and one other motorist in the incident, received but a mere citation for a red-light violation.
That’s the best the law can do? For nearly killing four children waiting to cross the street safely? That’s beyond unacceptable. It’s unconscionable. And it has to change. Without delay.
Overland Park officials say state law puts a cap on what the city can do to penalize red-light runners — even more reason Kansas lawmakers must act. Legislators, either give local authorities more power to set appropriate penalties or raise the current pitiful threshold statewide.
Stiffer penalties could include much heftier fines than the $150 prescribed in this case; actions against driver’s licenses; and perhaps a modest amount of jail time, if for no other reason than to get society’s attention.
On that point, motorists simply have to get their stuff together — for the sake of those around them, and for the security of children doing nothing more perilous than walking to school. It’s incumbent upon drivers, who set tons of metal careening down roads, to make safety job one.
That won’t be easy, it seems. “Our Cars Are Getting Better; Our Driving Is Getting Worse,” warns one headline. “Five Reasons Why Bad Drivers are Getting Worse,” blares another, with a third proclaiming, “America’s Driving Environment Is Getting Worse Every Year.”
Selfishness, shortsightedness and sheer stupidity are surely plaguing our streets today.
“Our driving culture stinks. Visitors from Western Europe are often astonished at how poorly American drivers navigate our roads,” writes Fleet Management Weekly, adding that “a 2016 study by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety found that nearly 80 percent of all drivers surveyed admitted to at least one incident of aggressive driving or road rage in the prior year.”
MIT research scientist Bobbie Seppelt says up to 60% of the time, drivers are “doing something in addition to operating the vehicle.” Others attribute increasing problems on the road to more drivers, more distractions and less enforcement.
State Sen. John Skubal, a Republican from Overland Park, says he will test the Legislature’s appetite next session for a bill requiring that cellphone use in vehicles be hands-free. It may be time. While most of us have noticed how ever-present phones are in drivers’ hands and attention spans, Skubal has actually been hit from behind by a young driver who regretfully admitted texting at the time.
Four schoolchildren were mowed down and nearly killed. To honor them and keep other innocents safe, drivers must pledge anew to obey the rules of the road — and lawmakers should hammer them when they don’t.
This story was originally published November 14, 2019 at 5:00 AM.