The AP had a small piece on a traffic accident in Hartsville, South Carolina where a bicyclist and pedestrian were killed when struck by a van.
The police said that the pedestrian was in the road illegally and the bicyclist wasn’t wearing reflective clothing or any such gear when the accident happened on state Highway 102.
Though the wreck is under investigation; the underlying issue is most likely being ignored.
We have this propensity to believe that inadequate roadways should be shared by traffic for which is was not designed.
Roads without bicycle lanes or sidewalks are not designed for bicycle and pedestrian traffic. Why then is such traffic supposed to share these avenues … endangering themselves as well as the motor vehicles for which they were designed.
This is a function of groups of individuals taking “rights” where they are not due. I see these “Share the road” signs and streams of bicycles holding up traffic on two lane roads with narrow shoulders, no sidewalks, nor any obvious means of supporting that traffic with whom we are supposedly to “share the road”.
Times are hard. Until the South Carolina Highway Department can adequately handle it’s responsibilities … like paving Ida Lane in the Hollow Creek community of rural Aiken County, South Carolina don’t ask me to share the road with a group of people utilizing conveyances for which that road was not designed. It’s bad enough that the road crew wants a cash payment to SCRAPE the roads. They can build dirt track raceways with county equipment — but CHOOSE not to maintain taxpayer thoroughfares.
