The driver of a large refrigerated freight truck struck and killed an elderly person walking on a sidewalk yesterday.
From Salem Police:
Emergency responders were called just before 11:00 a.m. to the 1900 block of Turner RD SE on the report of an elderly man struck by a tractor trailer exiting the driveway of the Walmart store.
The Salem Police Traffic Team is leading the incident and learned 81-year-old John Alvin Schwiewek was on the sidewalk walking northbound on the east side of Turner RD when he was struck by a tractor truck pulling a refrigerated trailer. The driver of the semi was exiting the Walmart parking lot and turning for northbound travel when Schiewek was struck and killed.
The driver, identified as John Lee Griffin, age 62, is cooperating with the investigation and requirements for commercial drivers in collisions of this nature.
The Traffic Team investigation continues, and as such, no citations have been issued or arrest made.
The completion of the crash scene reconstruction kept the roadway closed for approximately three-and-a-half hours.
Today’s fatal collision is the ninth to occur this year, and in total, have resulted in ten deaths.
The description is a little ambiguous about which driveway and how far into the sidewalk the truck and driver encroached.
The northmost entry is fully signalized and with marked crosswalks at Turner Road, and doesn't seem like a "driveway." It seems more like a "street."
 |
| Fully signalized with crosswalks |
The center driveway, the one most like a "driveway," has a sign forbidding trucks.
 |
| The more central driveway says no trucks |
The entry farther south has a marked crosswalk.
 |
| A driveway farther south has a marked crosswalk |
This post may be updated.
 |
| Back in 2015 we said "troubling" but really, how troubled are we? |
Killed in 2023
- Marganne Allen (biking on High Street)
- Julia Aubrey Wade (on Lancaster Drive)
- Adam Joy (biking on Wallace Road near Wheatland)
- Michael Scott Campos-Kegley (on Chemawa Road)
Killed in 2022
- George Heitz and Moira Hughes (inside their own home)
- Jowand Beck, Luke Kagey, Joe Posada III, and Rochelle Zamacona (camping on Front between Union and Division)
- Unknown person (on Cordon Road)
- Unknown person (on Lancaster Drive)
- Unknown person (on Lancaster Drive)
- Charles Dwayne Hatfield (I-5 in Linn County)
- Wesley James Crossman (RR)
- Vince Edward Fouts (Woodmansee Park lot)
- Cassandra Sullivan (I-5)
- Cynthia Lynn Perry Rizzo (Sunnyview Road)
- Kelly Joseph Fields (Cordon Road)
- Michael Ernest Summers (I-5)
- Denise Marie Vandyke (State and High)
- Linda Louise Wisher (Madrona Ave)
Killed in 2021
- Unknown person (I-5 and Market Street interchange)
- Rachel Bunting (while operating a bus for Cherriots)
- Blake Saville (on bike)
- Christian Kennedy (on Silverton Road)
- Galina Dvorskaya (south Commercial)
- Marlene Moreno (downtown crosswalk)
- Becky Dietzel (on North River Road)
- Unknown person (on Church St downtown)
- Aleta Pierre-Kelly (Mission Street)
- Eileen Johnson (on bike)
- Unknown person (on bike crossing Salem Parkway)
- Anthony Garza (on bike, crossing I-5)
- Christine Klug (on I-5)
- Samuel Lannigan (Lancaster Drive)
- Jaime Le Ann Hall (on skateboard)
- Sharon Pritchard
- Mario Lopez-Lopez (walking a bike)
- Unknown person via SJ (on I-5 near Market St)
- Andrew Otho Polston (biking on Windsor Island Road)
- Jolene Braasch Berry (on bike)
- Richardo Morales Avila (in McMinnville)
- Octavious Calloway (on I-5 near Market St)
- Selma Pierce
- Hermilo Mata Jr.
- Unknown person (on mobility scooter)
- Marshall Leslie
- Linda Adamson (south Salem) and Stephanie Ashford (biking on Lakeside Drive)
- Joseph Rodriguez (Lakeside Drive)
- Jason Libel (on bike)
- Josephine Watkins
- Rodric Kenyon Drolshagen
Killed in 2017
Killed in 2016:
- Olivia Stroup
- Jaren Nash
- Alex Armes
- Anthony Earnest
- Baxter Harrell
- Unknown (just outside Salem)
- Bradley Goad (in Silverton)
- James Alton
- Caroline Storm
- William Hatch
- Travis Lane
- David McGregor
- Michael and Christine Crossland
- Rebecca Schoff
Addendum, August 14th
Exacerbated by the paper's policy of not naming the drivers until they are charged and arraigned, the paper's blurb erases the driver with multiple instances of the "hit by car" trope and with convoluted passive voice.
 |
| Passive voice, erasing the driver |
This reinforces the idea that there is no one and no thing to blame and most crashes that kill people are merely oopsies, minor accidents. It is a minimizing, exculpatory frame, directing attention away from driver responsibility for safe operation of a vehicle and away from autoist systems.
 |
| On erasing the driver - Columbia Journalism Review |
For more discussion of language see these recent examples:
- "Headline Omits Verb, Erases the Driver; New TRB Paper Addresses Problem" (2019). This also has links to a follow-up study on framing and reader interpretation.
- See the way the story develops with different publications in "Driver Strikes and Kills Marshall Leslie on Foot near Downtown Safeway." (2019)
2 comments:
(Added clip from paper, erasing the driver.)
In their story Salem Reporter adds:
"Angela Hedrick, agency public information officer, said that according to a preliminary report, Schweiwek was in a marked crosswalk, crossing the driveway of the store at 1940 Turner Rd. S.E. at about 11 a.m. Saturday....
Hedrick said Schwiewek lived in one of the mobile home parks on Turner Road, about a mile south of the Walmart store."
Post a Comment