(Raquel Nelson) Mom granted new trial in death of son struck by driver

[alp227]

(CNN) -- A Georgia woman convicted on misdemeanor charges in the death of her son after he darted out into traffic will receive a new trial, a judge ruled.

Raquel Nelson's trial is set to begin October 25, according to an order filed by Cobb County State Court Judge Kathryn Tanksley on Tuesday.

Nelson's case had attracted national attention from parents, the NAACP and transportation advocates, who said Nelson, from the Atlanta suburb of Marietta, was being unfairly prosecuted because she chose to cross the road at the bus stop across from her apartment instead of traveling to the nearest crosswalk, three-tenths of a mile away.

In April 2010, Nelson and her three children had just gotten off the bus across from their apartment building when her 4-year-old son, A.J., broke away from her and ran into the street.

full: http://www.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/07/27/georgia.mother.new.trial/index.html

Geez, they can't get off her back? Since when did the law hold pedestrians accountable for being injured on the road? THIS IS VICTIM BLAMING RIGHT HERE...like blaming a woman for getting raped. Why does America value juvenile justice over educating poor children? Why would the state rather blame the mother for her child being RUN OVER BY A STUPID DRUNK DRIVER than putting people to work by reforming the road infrastructure?

Speaking of which, the PBS newsmagazine Need to Know had a report about these kinds of roads in Georgia.

[handmade34]

1. another take

http://www.grist.org/infrastructure/2011-07-20-when-design-kills-the-criminalization-of-walking


"But you can bet that the route Nelson and her children and all the other riders of that bus were taking across that road was a desire path, trodden by many hundreds of feet before. It was the logical, organic way to get from the bus stop to the apartment building. ....But no planner saw fit to acknowledge it. No traffic engineer marked it with paint. No municipal official put a traffic signal there so that the humans could proceed safely along the route that everyone knew they would inevitably take.... Why not? Because it was too important for the cars to get through. The cars must not be inconvenienced. The cars must go faster.

Out in Colorado, a fancy competition was recently held to design a bridge that would help bears and cougars and lynx to cross from one side of a highway to the other in safety. Elsewhere, "toad tunnels" have been constructed to help the amphibians get to their breeding ponds. British Telecom paid $32,280 for an otter tunnel to be built near one of its satellites after a female otter and two of her cubs were killed crossing the road to fish.

That is all fine and good. Let's help the animals cross the road, by all means...But what about the people?... All over America, there are roads that people cannot safely cross, and yet -- just like the lynx and the otter and the toad -- people do cross, because they have to get where they are going, and they won't walk a half mile out of their way (or more) to use a crosswalk that is often inadequate anyway (many fatal traffic incidents happen in crosswalks).

They just won't do it. Bus stop on one side, apartment directly across: It's like a trap designed to lure a person to do something forbidden and dangerous...."