If a crossing guard isn’t safe on Louisville streets, there’s little hope for the rest of us. On Thursday, February 18, a person was struck by a motorist in front of Male High School, 4409 Preston Highway, around 7:00a.m.
The incident was reported by WDRB, WAVE3, and WLKY. According to those reports, the unidentified person was not injured and declined to be taken to the hospital. Thankfully this case did not result in more serious injuries.
The local media reports were short with few details, but no one used the term accident. Only WDRB treated the collision as a traffic story, not a public safety story. “Preston Highway is all clear… Traffic that had been backed up quickly cleared,” WDRB wrote.
To be sure, this area is a pedestrian nightmare. Male High School is set far off the street that itself straddles the 12-lane Interstate 65 (18 lanes if you count the shoulders). Sidewalks generally exist here but are poorly and dangerously designed. Crosswalks are scant and even the turning radius to enter the Male High School parking lot has been designed to allow speeding motorists to take the turn at high speeds.
The speed limit along Preston Highway is a whopping 45 miles per hour, which would kill a person nine times out of ten. Such speeds also greatly reduce the visibility of motorists, increasing the risk a pedestrian could be struck.
FWIW, these write-ups are probably the most civic-minded journalism in all of Louisville Metro right now.
It’s very valuable putting all these incidents in a larger context, and do so consistently week-after-week. In contrast, the dismissive and uninterested tone with which the regular press reports on traffic injuries and deaths seems negligent, unseemly, and plainly unprofessional.