Updated June 5, 2011, to add new names.
If you ever read the comments under articles about a bicycle crash on a Chicago newspaper website, you’ll find the most hateful and misspelled vitriol about how bikers are horrible people and need to get off the road.
But bicycling poses no threat to public safety. Doing it actually enhances public safety and health. A recent study found that even though bicyclists inhale more pollution than people walking or driving, their lung capacity and health was such that they could “deal with it” better than people walking or driving. And if more people rode bicycles, there’d be fewer on-road injuries.
These are the people who need to get off the road:
Carlos Estrada, 42, of the 3600 block of Wisconsin Avenue, Berwyn, Illinois
A west suburban man was arrested on suspicion of DUI early Wednesday [June 1, 2011] — hours before he was to be sentenced for another DUI and more than 25 years after his license was revoked.
“Mr. Estrada has not had a valid driver’s license since September of 1985 and has been arrested several times in the past for driving while license suspended or revoked,” [Riverside Police Tom Chief] Weitzel said.
Chicago Sun-Times
Sandra Uher, 54, of Elgin, Illinois
A 54-year-old Elgin woman faces a little extra trouble with the law now, after she showed up drunk to her trial for her sixth DUI charge. The judge revoked bail and sent Sandra Uher to Cermak Hospital, part of the Cook County Jail. She could see six to 30 years in prison.
Daily Herald, via Chicagoist
Ryan LeVin, 36
On parole in Illinois, “A ‘millionaire playboy’ who killed two British tourists in Florida [Craig Elford, 39, and Kenneth Watkinson, 48] when his $150,000 Porsche jumped the curb will not go to jail, despite the fact that he fled the scene and lied to police officers about who was behind the wheel during the accident. Instead, he will pay cash restitution to the victims’ family, settling a civil suit on the condition that he not go to prison.”
Ryan LeVin, 36, will spend two years under house arrest in his parents’ oceanside condominium. LeVin initially denied driving the speeding car and pinned the blame on a friend. Illinois will seek to have his parole revoked and sent back to prison.
1st paragraph from Boing Boing, 2nd paragraph from Chicago Tribune
Kazimierz Karasek, 59 of Prospect Heights, Illinois
The driver of a semi truck who injured three dozen commuters when he turned into the path of a Metra train Friday [May 13, 2011] had accumulated more than 50 traffic citations since 1986 but hadn’t lost his license.
None of the infractions, including a 2000 drunken-driving arrest, triggered the suspension of the commercial driver’s license of driver Kazimierz Karasek, who was killed in the fiery wreck in Mount Prospect.
Chicago Tribune – They also have a map of the crash at Northwest Highway and Mount Prospect Road showing the string of events.
One of Kazimierz Karasek’s citations including driving the wrong way on a divided highway! There are hundreds of other people driving cars and trucks without licenses, on suspended licenses, and without the required insurance. That’s in addition to the hundreds of people who were not required to take driver’s education (in Illinois, people 18 and older are not required to take a formal driver’s education course). I am saying there are many bad drivers and many with poor or no education on how to drive legally and safely.
Yet we continue to let the drivers we know to be terrible at driving continue to drive and harass our cities and citizens. Those who take surface trains are not immune.
A Union Pacific locomotive tows the UP-Northwest Metra train damaged by Kazimierz Karasek’s stupidity, his truck, and its cement slab cargo. Janelle has more crash photos.
Chicagoland is not the only place where we witness this carnage and traffic injustices. Streetsblog NYC today reports that an “unlicensed, speeding, hit-and-run driver who killed an elderly Staten Island couple in 2009 has been sentenced to a maximum of five years in jail.” Nice, right?
Will this couple make it across Western Avenue safely? Photo by Joshua Koonce. In related news, the Chicago Department of Transportation and the Mayor’s Pedestrian Advisory Council will start the public planning process for the Chicago Pedestrian Plan. Find a list of meetings.
P.S.: Who still freaking drives around closed railroad gates?