Jaydriver Leaves Road, Crashes and Kills 4 People near ARCHES

Last night there was a terrible crash near ARCHES. The initial story, and a lot of the response, blamed the victims, focusing on them as camping in the wrong place. But they were not camping in the roadway! They were not even on the sidewalk. They were well away from where a car is supposed to be. (See this long thread on instances of drivers crashing into buildings well off the roadway. Are the buildings in the wrong place?)

The error, a grievous and fatal one, is the driver's. The driver is the one at fault, and reporting and comment should underscore the jaydriving, not the camping. Driving is the act that employs lethal force.

The Mayor even misunderstands the problem, perhaps by design.

The Mayor focuses on camping, not jaydriving

The problem is "unmanaged driving" not "unmanaged camping." If the driver had crashed into a building would the Mayor talk about "unmanaged buildings"?

From the Police:

[T]he driver of a two-door sports coupe was traveling northbound on Front ST passing Union ST when the vehicle left the roadway and crashed into an unsheltered encampment pinning two individuals beneath the car. The camp was located at the corner where Front ST NE intersects with the Front ST business route known as OR99E.

Two individuals died at the scene. Four people from the encampment were transported to Salem Health with life-threatening injuries, two of whom later died at the hospital. The driver, and sole occupant of the vehicle, was also transported for medical treatment.

The exact number of individuals and tents at the encampment is not known.

Officers helped several uninjured campers collect some of their belongings and provided shelter assistance. Three individuals were taken to a local motel. The City of Salem’s homeless advocacy partners were also contacted in an effort to get the members of our unsheltered community connected to needed resources as a result this tragedy....

Enrique Rodriguez, Jr., age 24, was [later] arrested on the following charges:

• Manslaughter in the first degree, four counts
• Assault in the second degree
• Assault in the third degree
• Reckless endangerment, six counts

There will be more to say, as too many people will choose to talk about "inappropriate camping" and not about "inappropriate driving" and "broad streets that allow or induce high speeds." However distasteful is the camping and its disorder, the fundamental and lethal problem here is jaydriving.

Update, Monday morning

Here is the framing in the paper

Front page today

Far into the SJ story, they do add some counter-narratives:

“This is the result of someone’s violent reckless behavior behind the wheel. It could have happened at a school or at a bus stop or the farmer’s market,” [Jimmy Jones, Executive Director for ARCHES] said....

In a statement on Facebook, City Councilor Vanessa Nordyke called out individuals on social media “blaming” homeless people for camping near busy roads....“It’s only been a matter of hours, but I’m already seeing social media posts blaming the homeless for camping near a busy street. As if they deserved to die,” Nordyke wrote on her Facebook page. “The dehumanization of the unsheltered, especially in a time of immense suffering and grief, is completely unacceptable.”

The story in the paper repeated the Mayor's position, though. But it is callous and incoherent. When a person drives into a building, we do not discuss any "unmanaged" or "disorderly" state of the building.

2014 crash into Fire Station 11 on Orchard Heights

In January, Andrew Modine crashed into the home of George Heitz and Moira Hughes, killing both of them. The house was not enough to protect them, but the fact they could afford a house insulated them from accusations of "unmanaged" residence. The problem in all of these cases is unmanaged driving.

Addendum, March 28th

Police released names of the dead:

• Jowand Beck, age 24
• Luke Kagey, age 21
• Joe Posada III, age 54
• Rochelle Zamacona, age 29.

They also said Derrick Hart, age 43, and Savaanah Miller, age 18 were injured and are still hospitalized.

Separately, at the arraignment, the SJ got details on the driver and his driving:

A 24-year-old man was driving 70 mph in downtown Salem with blood alcohol more than three times the legal limit when he crashed into a homeless camp....

Enrique Rodriguez Jr., 24, is being held without bail on multiple manslaughter charges, as well as a DUII....His blood alcohol content was 0.26 percent; the legal limit is .08.

Since about 2014, Rodriguez has been found in violation of various traffic laws, including driving without a valid license, and careless driving, Suver added.

Update, March 30th

Today's paper has a story on the jaydriver, who that same day had already been observed speeding, and who had a history of bad driving and bad decisions.

But it is also interesting to note how quickly he resorted to the urban deer argument: "[they] walked out in front of [me]."

Today's paper

Drivers routinely try to shift blame to people on foot and on bike who "suddenly" move into the path of motor vehicle. You may recall the way six year old Alice Lane was inaccurately said to have "stepped from high grass near her home...directly into the path of a car driven by Mark Odom Hatfield...." This argument is available in some sense always. It's a cultural template active in our current autoism, to shift blame away from drivers and onto those outside a car.

So this instance of "they walked out in front of me" is customary rather than some desperate attempt at deflection (though it is also that).

Here it is easily refuted and it will not prevail. But when there is no video evidence, our autoism leads even other witnesses to side with drivers and say that a person crossing the street or in a bike lane made a sudden movement and error to place themselves in a driver's trajectory and to make a crash unavoidable. We hear this time and time again.

Perhaps its absurdity here will lead to more critical reflection on other deployments.

Addendum, January 12th, 2023

Front page today

Highlights of a bad actor and a system that could not contain him:

• He was estimated to be driving at 70mph on a street posted for 35mph
• Earlier that day he was apparently seen racing on MLK Parkway
• His drivers license was suspended and he had a warrant out for him in Lebanon for a parole violation on an earlier sentence for jaydriving
• And even earlier violations

The framing on the story also consistently underlines the homeless camp, unfortunately, as if people there were not blameless. if they hadn't been camping in the wrong place, they would still be alive. There is an implied false balance here.

But of course someone walking there at night might also have been struck. The framing continues to struggle with jaydriving and our autoist road system, which designs roads to forgive "minor" driver errors and in fact allows roads on which it is easy to get up to highway speed in urban areas.