SALINE COUNTY, Kan. (KWCH/Gray News) — A Norwegian man attempting to rollerblade across the U.S. was killed in a hit-and-run in Kansas, officials said.
The Saline County Sheriff’s Office identified the man as 24-year-old Joachim Lanham.
Lanham was documenting his rollerblading journey across the U.S. on Instagram. According to a post from his family, he was hit by an SUV on day 22 of his journey from New York to Los Angeles
I spend a fair bit of time in 'Murica
There is an entertainment area about a twenty minute walk away from where I stay
I’d happily walk it, but it’s genuinely unwise to do so, so I end up taking ubers
It’s something that I find disappointing
We let 82 year olds drive
We let humans drive a mass greater than they could physically keep from rolling down a slight incline at speeds faster than they can see, around other vulnerable human beings, just because they want to. No need to bring ageism into this. That’s just a way of assuring yourself you are a safe driver, that this couldn’t happen to you. You’re not and it could. No one is a safe driver.
We force them to drive. So long as we have a car-dependent infrastructure and few if any affordable alternatives, you’re advocating for elderly people to require family or money to be able to navigate the world around them, which is not really a great stance to take.
That does not require this situation to be the case of required driving, but a rule which prohibits elderly people from driving means that we have to anticipate how it will effect people that could not get around otherwise; disabled people deal with this all the time, and they’re pretty much abandoned.
We have restricted licences in Australia, where through their GP reporting changes in circumstances or failure to pass an aged driving tests they can have a limited radius / areas they are allowed to drive (say supermarket, close relatives, gp, activities).
It does put a bit of a rock and a hard place for some folks, but it’s a much better option than having no licence.
The fitness to drive test scheme is well executed, is not required to be held at a service centre (via trained 3rd parties) and let’s most maintain their mobility.
In the US, they have golf carts, some communities plan for them, even giving thrm special roads, but they’re often banned on higher speed roads, which you need to get anywhere. Here in vietnam, 82 year olds mostly ride 49cc scooters.
It’s sad, but yeah they and their families need to suffer the consequences of car centric hell, taking away the licenses of people too old to notice they killed someone, and start taking meaningful action to remedy this situation. Unfortunately no one will change a thing of they don’t face consequences.
I think it is a very Lemmy response to say, “well yeah, but it’s more reasonable to punish innocent people who have few or no options so that people feel bad enough to fix things.”
As I said, disabled people are still often disqualified from driving, there are physical requirements for driving that disqualifies many elderly people. Guess what happens to people who don’t have family to support them.
You’re from Canada? This is from thirteen fucking years ago: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/for-seniors-losing-driver-s-licence-like-having-arm-cut-off-1.1346585
Is it fixed?
Oh, and before you act like that isn’t relevant: https://www.kslegislature.gov/li_2024/b2023_24/statute/008_000_0000_chapter/008_002_0000_article/008_002_0047_section/008_002_0047_k/
“The one who is always the most surprised is the one whose needs were met.”
I think you’re strawmanning a bit with that “punishment talk” and treating things like they are mutually exclusive when they are not.
I literally just read an old lady (article about upcoming municipal elections) commenting that the city went too far with bike lanes and bus stops. Society keeps catering to old people drivers, who in turn vote against better alternatives; fucking/running us all over.
Sure, could you explain how you read, “Unfortunately no one will change a thing of [sic] they don’t face consequences,” in response to “we should be considerate of the material needs of people before we ban them from driving,” as anything other than a punishment?
I also like, don’t care about what an old lady in your city said…? That doesnt change the fact that there’s a 100% chance that a ban on elderly drivers would lead to deaths and hardship of innocent people in a system that abandons them otherwise and requires access to a car to even exist in? Are you seriously suggesting that it is reasonable to do that to make sure these nasty ladies don’t drive?
Canadians are so brutal dude.
What a pure-hearted dream, crushed by the worst country in the world. Of course it would happen in Kansas.
Forest Gump was a lie :/
Oh no… media addicted narcissist kills himself for upvotes by doing something dangerous and ill advised? What? Again? I’m shocked!
(HUGE condolences to his loved ones. Seriously — this is a tragedy. I don’t blame cars. I blame this system that rewards narcissism plus risk. No thanks. I’m out. Again — if you are a grieving family member seeing this, I am so sorry for your loss.)
What in the victim blaming bullshit are you on about?
The villains here, in order of culpability are:
The old lady who kept driving years or decades after she really should have turned in the keys
The political class that continues to enshrine motornormativity and treat all methods of transport other than ecocidal narcissism as less-than.
The culture of the US, created by carbrained assholes
Absolutely not in any way the person killed by the assholes listed above for trying to do something fun and interesting.
doing something dangerous and ill advised
using public roads in the US
“Media addicted narcissist” it’s just a guy who liked roller blading
Gets hit by a 80+ year old in an SUV, and you’re equating it to “kills himself” - what a braindead take.
This is horrible… but also somehow even more sad that I would have totally expected this. Trying to go cross country on rollerblades in the US is akin to entering a warzone with a target on your back. This country is not friendly to non-car commuters. I live in a dense suburb with some bikelanes and its bad enough, so I cannot imagine what its like in places with huge stroads and highways running through town. You can barely cross a street let alone travel on rollerblades or bikes…
Same. I’m fortunate that there are a ton of residential roads I can use to get where I’m going, and in the main city corridor there are bike lanes protected (mostly) by curbs, but I’ve had dozens of cars just stray into my bike lane when pulling out of McDonald’s or trying to cross a main road, and culturally, I’m well aware that it’s on me to make sure I’m the on ensuring my safety and not the asshole behind the two-ton death machine.
Murica
He wasn’t shot, so that’s a nice change. /s
Oof, why did I laugh at this? 'Tis America, I guess?
When you keep playing the odds
The amount of misplaced courage thst a person from the ages of 16-30 has would shock even the gods themselves.
Poor kid though. R.I.P. he picked the super wrong country to attempt this in.
I watched as Chad Caruso skateboarded the US and I was scared for him the entire way. It’s such a huge gamble.
It really is.
I’ve had cars going the other way on a road slow down to yell at and intimidate me, even though I’m on the other side of the road and observing traffic laws. I wear a motorcycle helmet, in part, for fear that one day one of these nutjobs will throw something at me. The entitlement is absolutely bonkers.
When I was a kid, I used to ride my bike to go places… on the sidewalk, and I’d still, as a kid have people angrily shout at me for riding a bike, and on multiple occasions, people even swerve through the 3 feet of verge towards me on the sidewalk, I dont know if they were trying to scare me or if they were actually trying to hit me, but it left enough of an imprint on me to not what to be anywhere near the road when i’m not in a car.
Cause people in cars are absolutely psychopathic towards non-cars. Not all of them, but enough of them are that it makes you fear all of them.
I was on my bicycle one time, on a road that was plenty wide enough for a car to pass me with the required minimum space of four feet while staying in their lane. A car passed me going way farther to the left of me than they needed to, forcing a van that was coming in the opposite direction to pull over to the curb and stop. As he passed me, the van driver stuck himself halfway out his window and started yelling at me “you’re gonna get somebody killed!” Asshole, go yell at the driver of the other car, I didn’t do shit. And all that happened is it took you an extra five seconds to get to the red light.
Yeah I cycle every day and most of the time everybody’s cool I’m cool you’re cool we’re all cool, but maybe once a month I see someone in a car do something absolutely car brained, like they forget they can take out a family with 1/16th a rotation of their steering wheel at the wrong time.
I mean I drive on occasion, I know how easy it is to be stupid in a car.
Motorists do love to hell that, ironically, when they should be paying attention to the road.
Yeah getting emotional while you’re operating a motor vehicle is a form of impairment afaic.
“An 82-year-old female said she had been driving a 2013 Ford Edge SUV going west on Country Club Road. She stated that she thought she hit something, turned around to check the area, but didn’t see anything, so she continued her journey home.”
Well at least she was nice and safe in her rolling fortress.
And thank god we don’t ever test people again after giving them access to killing machines
The thing about cars is that they are a lethal weapon INSIDE AND OUTSIDE. .
So obviously outside you have this mostly iron thing that weighs over a tonne or more and it can easily reach speeds of over 250 km/hr if the deranged driver wants it to…
But If someone alters their car so that you cant get outside once theyve locked you inside… You better hope that theyve put you in the trunk cause thats the only place with the emergency opening. Also whst if theu alter the trunk to make it so that only they can open it?..
Also I was reading this one comment from a police shooting a couple yesrs ago aand it changed how I see the lethality of cars from the inside. And it basically said: “The main perpetrator was shot and killed by police but a person who was kidnapped inside the car were ALSO shot and killed by those police officers. But something that the news story conveniently omits about the officers’ response is that the car was travelling at insane speeds for most of the chase …So how could the kidnapped people inside the car escape if they couldnt jump out? They didnt deserve to also be shot as they had no route out of the car.”
82 YEAR OLD? I think my grandpa died at around that age, they’re letting this person drive?
It’s Kansas. If she can’t drive she literally cannot leave her home…
But I’m sure there are taxis in Kansas.
Tennessee city of 40k here. No taxi service for the last decade, and no uber drivers unless you get really lucky.
There’s a city van that will take elderly people around town. It requires three business days notice, the pickup time is an hour window, shopping trips are limited to three bags, and it’s not free.
in rural areas it’s pretty hard, but some small towns have basically on demand dial a ride type of services for the elderly, but still people really resist losing their freedom on that.
82-year-old
FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK
I’ve read horror stories told by acquaintances from Japan about old people there driving and usually finding themselves crashing into things, crashing into cars, cyclists, pedestrians, or worse. There’s been talk among Japanese about setting limits to drivers older than 60 or 70.
I hate everything about this story, fuck car culture so much
Calling a Ford Edge a “rolling fortress” is a bit of a stretch
most modern SUVs are. particularly compared to any bike.
It sure feels like it when it’s wooshing past you at highway speed on a bicycle.
Calling it a pollution powered people crusher is a pretty accurate assessment tho.
At least she turned herself in. I’m not sure I would’ve had enough courage and selfrespect to do that.
I hope she feels like shit and sees consequences for making a half-assed attempt at identifying what she hit. She could at least get out of the vehicle ffs. He might have been able to be saved.
Slim chances of her seeing real consequences. The easiest way to get away with murder in the US is to do it with a car.
You are saying the planned to run him over. How do you back that up?
I agree that she made a terrible mistake. She should have to pay restitution to the family, get jail time and probably never drive again. But murder is a whole different thing. You might as well charge her with genocide.
The person you replied to made 2 true and disconnected statements.
One was that she’s unlikely to face consequences.
The other was that the easiest way to get away with murder is to do it with a car.
They never said she killed that man intentionally. They said she’s unlikely to face consequences. This can be verified by knowing how little punishment people receive in the US for hitting people with cars AND knowing how little punishment happens when someone who’s a senior citizen does it. Here’s an article about an elderly women who killed a family of 4 and got probation for example (Honestly an infuriatingly depressing read).
The second statement is about how killing someone with a car basically means (at least in the US) you’re likely to face very little consequence vs a murder charge.
Ofc its a fucking hit and run too like what the fuck. We remember people out here being like “ban cars? You don’t mean outright right? Haha” no we mean it, we hate cars, ban them we hate them so fucking much dude. Yeah there’s a time or place for them but there needs to be proper safe routes for pedestrians and bikers and cars need to be straight up banned in certain areas.
Ps: all our thoughts and care to the family, really sorry for your son. He was doing what he loved.
Cars need to be considered second class transport on the road, especially in urban areas.
Part of the reason surface transit sucks so much here in Toronto is that for some retarded reason they make it so LRTs have to wait for cars to pass at intersections, where it slows them down so much people can reach their destination quicker if they run.
Yeah in reality, pedestrians > bike’s/other small personal riders > public transit > small commercial riders (think mail couriers/small delivery) > mopeds/bikes (with heavily enforced legal noise and pollution limits) > cars (with heavily enforced noise and pollution limits) and most if not all residential streets: cars are not allowed or are maxed at 10km/h.
But in our heart, no cars at all thanks 💖 bring us trams, trains bikes and walking parks babyyyy
A train or a bus transports way more people than walking or biking and has less ability to stop.
Train>bus>commercial trucks>bicycles>ebikes>pedestrians> motorcycles>LSVs>>>>cars
Ah mb got the pedestrian mixed up, though bikes should watch out for pedestrians in mid use and pedestrians should watch out for bikes in mix lanes/bike lanes. Though commercial trucks should be in same place as normal cars imo (but sowed in mixed use areas only at certain times like early morning/night)
Trucks have less ability to stop and emit a ton of pollution when they need to accelerate again, its in everyone’s best interest that they are not obstructed.
True, but big trucks don’t need to be in city centers or in areas that are pedestrianized in the first place. They should be completely separate specifically for that reason yeah?
Are fewer commercial vehicles that only enter pedestrianized areas at low times good? Sure. But that may not be realistic, depending on the size and logistical needs of the pedestrianized zone. When there are commercial trucks in the city, they need priority so they can get out as unobtrusivly as possible.
Yeah it takes a legend to go on an adventure like that.
Vila i frid broder.
Guess they picked the wrong country to rollerblade in /s
As someone who travels on two wheels in the US all the time, they kinda did.
‘kinda did’ in one of thr most car-centric countries on the planet?
Or even visit
I wouldn’t walk, roller blade, or ride a two wheel vehicle of any sort on a public road here. People will hit a parked car and say it came out of no where. We’ll give anyone a license and in some cases without a driving test.
I’ve been to Saline County, Kansas. That’s an especially shitty place to die.
The only thing I like about Salina is their roller derby team.
Ironic.
Remember, people who don’t live here:
Our rails are almost all shut down, public transit is a joke in all but a few small areas, roads are dangerous to bike or walk on with many not even having a shoulder let alone a reasoable place for traffic that isn’t motorized.
You slmost have to have a car here, by incredibly shitty design.
And then the cars, now…
Between the fact that nobody makes a decent car anymore, they all fall apart just about the time your lease is up so you can’t even own one only sign eternal contracts for landfill bait, all of them spy on you, and have beacons that are tracked by countless parts of our surveillence capitalism infrastructure on top of sending their own reports on you to the automaker who then sells it to anyone ad everyone, insurance is insanely expensive, and now gas is nuts, as well… And if you have a diesel?
I don’t own a car anymore, and am not in an area with passable public transit. I have one chance a week, insanely early in the morning, to catch a buss for an eight hour trip that would take one by car to get to a hub… Which doesn’t even have decent local transit for the town, but does have a meeting of interstates so you can catch other busses to other cities. At leaast those city connections run at least once a day instead of a week.
Every time I visit the US, I travel by train and bus and bicycle and walking.
This is misinformation.
This is the same kind of “I KNOW BETTER!” fuckery Europeans call American tourists out on.
Remember that the United States is larger than the entierity of Europe if you don’t count Russia, and comperable if you do.
YMMV, and I’d wager most visitors are in ideal locations more often than not, so you see the best we have to offer… Unless it’s Florida, of course.
I also spend $100 a month for internet that often caps at 100k, that’s the speed of a dial-up shotgun modem from the 90s, tell me how your gigabit fiber in your hotel is cheaper and faster because the city you are in must reflect the conditions of the entire nation.
If you live in a shitty place, move.
The sweet spot for cars is early 2000s, like 2005. Still analog enough to be cheap to repair but with relatively modern luxuries. Thankfully I got rid of the truck and got a car it just sips gas. An 8 hour road trip takes like $50 in gas even at around $4 per gallon.
I prefer going back to the 60s and 70s, but when you do that fule efficiency drops my a huge amount, to have something affordable to drive regularly you’ll need a 4 cylinder from that time period.
Of course I only really use a vehicle for hauling things, so it has to be a V8, but on the bright side the big trucks that could haul massive loads from back then are actually smaller than the “Never leave the pavement, and if you carry more than groceries your warranty is void” trucks they sell now.
I was far below the average gas use when I had that big F-550 than the American average because I used it for what it was needed for, or to drive down the highway and park so I could pull out my bike and ride from there once I was past the “Oh god, oh god, we’re all gonna die!” stretch of road.
Other than crash safety back then I won’t disagree with you. But I’ve never owned a car from that time period so I don’t know what it’s like. 94 is as old as it gets for me, but the highest it gets is 2009. I will absolutely agree with your stance on modern trucks not actually being used for hauling or towing and how dangerously large they are. It’s more dangerous to not have a large vehicle these days. And I’m assuming that stretch of road was spine crushing with no load? Sounds like something you only do once or twice.
The fuel efficiency dips but so does the internal safety. Those old cars have a nasty tendency to crush your legs in a fairly mild collision, not to mention the head trauma from every surface before side and curtain airbags.
well, the other side of that, I’ve been hit by a full size modern truck doing about 30 in the driver’s side door and all I got was a dent ;)
Still benefiting from modern crumple zones in an unreliable prisoner’s-dilemma sort of way.
I have one chance a week, insanely early in the morning, to catch a buss for an eight hour trip that would take one by car to get to a hub
I know what’s that like. I was carless for two years in a suburb that had an express bus into the city that you could catch one of two times in the morning and one of two times home in the afternoon. If I had to work overtime I had to beg coworkers for rides.
Being near the streetcar was a big part of why I moved where I did when I had the chance, but not everyone has that privilege these days. (And lucky me, my parents have been “borrowing” my car for two years.)
