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Seth Vidal, creator of yum, killed in hit and run accident

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51–60 of 415 posts

Re: Seth Vidal, creator of yum, killed in hit and run accident

#51

"Hit and run bike accident". No, a hit and run automobile homicide.

Fatal vehicle accidents are not always vehicular homicide/manslaughter. A standard of negligence (such as being past the DUI limit) has to be established. Hit-and-run also does not necessarily result in a homicide (or assault) charge being filed.

Re: Seth Vidal, creator of yum, killed in hit and run accident

#53

This is terrible, but I wonder if there's a technical way we can provide a black box for bicyclists so that these sorts of injustices don't go unpunished. RIP :(.

Maybe the answer is self driving cars that via sensors are less likely to make these types of errors.

Exactly! Punishing people after accidents, however much at fault they may be, is far less important or useful than preventing them in the first place.

Re: Seth Vidal, creator of yum, killed in hit and run accident

#54

This is terrible, but I wonder if there's a technical way we can provide a black box for bicyclists so that these sorts of injustices don't go unpunished. RIP :(.

Google Glass?

That is interesting, but probably not a viable solution for _today_. Something like an always-on dashcam [1] would be the way to go. I'm thinking there are some out there whose energy is generated by pedaling your bike.

yum was good software. Vidal will be missed.

Rob Levin, lilo (founder) of FreeNode, was another person lost to a hit and run accident while he was riding his bike. What can be done to make biking safer in the states?

[1]: http://www.tachyoninc.com/bikercam.php

Re: Seth Vidal, creator of yum, killed in hit and run accident

#55
post #7

So very sad. I personally think the world would be a much better place if cars were relegated to intercity travel and walking/biking/public transit were the only means of intracity movement. The world would be cleaner and in all likelihood much healthier, and needless accidents like this would be avoided. RIP.

Not every place on Earth looks like your immediate neighborhood. For example, large chunks of Silicon Valley (not the most remote or undeveloped place in the world) are effectively inaccessible other than by car - unless you are willing to spend 3 hours commuting in each direction and are ready to subjugate your whole life to extremely sparse and inconvenient schedule of public transportation.

Like it or not, cars are the only way people can get from place with reasonable costs of living to place where it is reasonable to situate offices/industry buildings in numbers and with speed that is required by modern economy.

Re: Seth Vidal, creator of yum, killed in hit and run accident

#56
post #6

When will we stop tolerating the flagrant waste of life that occurs every day as a result of our addiction and worship of the automobile?

Worship? Hyperbolic bullshit. The automobile, and the high mobility it affords, is the primary cause for a lot of social and economic progress over the past century for the average person.

Re: Seth Vidal, creator of yum, killed in hit and run accident

#57
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a really interesting comment. I think there are battery limitations, but maybe you could design Google Glass with an App that triggers on abrupt physical displacement (IE a collision). I wonder if that would help. You definitely couldn't stream continuously because of battery and bandwidth limitations.

On collision is too late. You need to know the lead up to an accident, not the flight of the device through the air afterwards.

Not necessarily. When you ask glass for a photo, it finds the best focus lock over some time period that includes a short time before and after the command was executed. It has some sort of running buffer. This could work exactly the same way.

Re: Seth Vidal, creator of yum, killed in hit and run accident

#58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He was killed by an automobile driver. The U.S. is notorious [1] for bicyclists (and pedestrians) being hit by cars at a relatively high rate, because it prioritizes automobile infrastructure and speed (and culture) over bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure/accessibility/safety. [1] Not to say it's the worst, just relatively bad for an advanced country.

Without living in the US it is hard for you to come up with a valid argument against prioritizing automobile infrastructure. Population density alone makes it an issue outside of large cities like New York, because of that you'll also find most cities have pretty lackluster public transportation. It is tragic that people are hurt and worse because of automobiles but they are a fact of life in America and cyclists are…

> Without living in the US it is hard for you to come up with a valid argument against prioritizing automobile infrastructure.

I'm American, and have lived in the U.S. for about 90% of my life, so I'm pretty familiar with the issues. Even leaving aside major change, and just taking cities as they exist today, pedestrian/bicyclist access and safety is just not prioritized even within cities. I lived in midtown Atlanta for three years, and two people I know were hit by automobiles while crossing in a crosswalk (fortunately neither killed, but one injured seriously). Bicycling safely was pretty much impossible, because the roads were designed exclusively for cars. And god help you if you were anywhere worse for pedestrians than midtown, which was relatively good.

It's partly infrastructure and partly culture imo. If you compare how drivers and pedestrians interact in, say, a German city center, with how they interact in Atlanta, the German intersections give much more formal protection: more crosswalks have lights, whereas many Atlanta crosswalks are not signalized, and the lights will typically give at least a short fully protected period to cross, while the Atlanta ones leave you dodging left/right turning cars even on a 'walk' signal. And culturally, the German drivers are just much more conscientious about yielding right of way when the law says they should. Pedestrians in a crosswalk are supposed to have right of way in the U.S., too, but at least in Atlanta you can't rely on it.

Re: Seth Vidal, creator of yum, killed in hit and run accident

#59

This is terrible, but I wonder if there's a technical way we can provide a black box for bicyclists so that these sorts of injustices don't go unpunished. RIP :(.

Google Glass?

Seth got hit from behind. Google Glass would most likely not be very useful.

Re: Seth Vidal, creator of yum, killed in hit and run accident

#60
post #51

"Hit and run bike accident". No, a hit and run automobile homicide.

Fatal vehicle accidents are not always vehicular homicide/manslaughter. A standard of negligence (such as being past the DUI limit) has to be established. Hit-and-run also does not necessarily result in a homicide (or assault) charge being filed.

Someone struck him with a car and killed him. I think leaving the scene after killing someone with a vehicle should satisfy any any standard of negligence.
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