Tweet of the Week: Nobody walks a half mile to cross the street

Last week was a deadly week for pedestrians in the Puget Sound. A 77-year-old woman from Seattle died in the early hours of Monday morning while crossing a Bellevue street. She was hit by two drivers. Then on Thursday night, Linda Kulich, a 56-year-old woman from Bothell, also died crossing a street. She was on her way home when she was hit by three drivers late that evening. Both stories of these women’s deaths are tragic ones, but they’re all too common for pedestrians and cyclists. But perhaps the bigger tragedy here is that the media and police described these incidents almost as if they were the fault of the victims.

Tom over at Seattle Bike Blog pushed back against a KING 5 tweet that described Linda Kulich as not crossing in a crosswalk. He nailed it when he posted a map of showing the path on Bothell-Everett Highway that Linda Kulich would have to walk in order to use a marked crosswalk. It was over a a quarter-mile away in either direction.