Road design, safety and Vision Zero

[creative]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/lo...-1.6056238

This appears to be a murder and hate crime. While I believe you that the road is horrible for pedestrian safety, I think the level of infrastructure required to protect against attempts to murder is very different from general safety, and road design isn't the causal factor here.

Note: I’m deliberately thinking about this in a detached way. I have to do this for my own mental health.

Given that, part of what I find interesting about this is how quickly the police identified it as a murder. As I understand it, the charges are 1st degree murder x4 + attempted murder. None of this “vehicular manslaughter” stuff. No discussion of what colour clothing the victims were wearing.

I think the sentences should be served consecutively, and anybody who expresses any support for the perpetrator should be investigated with an eye to identifying and punishing past, present, or future hate crimes.

I’m not even sure if I’m serious about that last paragraph. It could be read as a massive expansion of government/police monitoring of speech; but on the other hand, if there is one kind of person we don’t need out and about in our society it would be anybody who thinks that casually murdering a family for being the wrong religion or skin colour is even understandable, never mind an actual good. Certain beliefs need to be brutally suppressed, even in a free and democratic society.

This case is also a point where hate crimes and car culture meet up. Would the perpetrator have been able to commit this crime with another weapon? Most car-related violence is unintentional; it’s sloppy driving by people who don’t intend to hurt anybody, even if their level of care for those outside their vehicle is entirely insufficient. In this case it’s (apparently; trial to confirm) intentional. It would be interesting to know what kind of a driver the perpetrator normally is: do they normally speed through quiet streets and cut off pedestrians at crosswalks, or are they a perfectly reasonable driver when they aren’t deliberately killing people? Are there any past incidents or near-incidents which were not properly identified at the time?

What a load of horseshit!