{"id":1255,"date":"2011-11-23T12:49:08","date_gmt":"2011-11-23T17:49:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/11\/map-of-traffic-fatalities-in-lowndes-county.html"},"modified":"2011-11-23T12:49:08","modified_gmt":"2011-11-23T17:49:08","slug":"map-of-traffic-fatalities-in-lowndes-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/11\/map-of-traffic-fatalities-in-lowndes-county.html","title":{"rendered":"Map of traffic fatalities in Lowndes County related to paving and widening"},"content":{"rendered":"What do you see when you zoom in on traffic fatalities in Lowndes County, Georgia?\nLots of road deaths on roads recently paved, for one thing.\n

\nSimon Rogers wrote for the Guardian 22 November 2011,\n\nUS road accident casualties: every one mapped across America<\/a>\n

\n369,629 people died on America’s roads between 2001 and 2009. Following\nits analysis of UK casualties last week, transport data mapping experts\nITO World have taken the official data from the National Highway\nTraffic Safety Administration – and produced this powerful map using\nOpenStreetMap. You can zoom around the map using the controls on the\nleft or search for your town using the box on the right – and the key\nis on the top left. Each dot represents a life\n<\/blockquote>\nThe national view is very interesting, but let’s look at Lowndes County:\n

\n\n<\/a>\n

\nI don’t know what that adds up to, but it looks to me like a lot of dead people,\nand in just nine years, from 2001 to 2009.\nFar more dead people than killed by terrorism.\n

\nOK, but where are these fatalities happening?\nAll over the county.\nLet’s zoom in on Hambrick Road:\n\n\n

\n\n<\/a>\n

\nHm, two fatalities shown on Hambrick Road, and none on state highway 122\nslightly to the north.\n\n<\/a>\nAnd those two are not even all, judging by\nthis cross that appeared about halfway between in January 2011.\nPlus there was an accident on Hambrick\nthat sent three people to the hospital;\nfortunately nobody died in that one.\nSo that’s two or three fatalities on Hambrick Road and at least\nthree people sent to the hospital, all since it was paved\nabout a decade ago.\nAccording to families who have lived nearby for generations,\nin the hundred years Hambrick was a dirt road, there was\nonly one serious accident.\n

\nOne could start to wonder whether paving roads causes accidents\nand even deaths.\n

\nWe already know that\n\nwider is not safer<\/a>;\n\nslower is safer.<\/a>\nFor that matter,\n\ntrees make roads safer,<\/a>\nby getting drivers to pay attention.\nAnd it’s hard to get going as fast on a dirt road.\n

\nSo why does the Lowndes County Commission persist in cutting down trees\nto pave and widen roads like Staten Road where,\n\naccording to David Rodock in the VDT 17 November 2011,<\/a>\nthree Moody airmen perished this month due to excessive speeds?\n

\n“The 23rd Wing has endured another great loss. I, along with everyone\n\n<\/a>\non this base, grieve for them and their family during this time. I\noffer my sincerest condolences and our team will continue to help\nthose affected by this tragedy,” said Col. Billy Thompson, 23rd Wing\ncommander. “Team Moody is keeping the family and friends affected in\nour thoughts and prayers.”\n

\nBased on the crash-site investigation and Georgia State Patrol officers\ncrash report, the 2008 silver Dodge Charger was traveling at a high\nrate of speed on a sharp corner along the 5000 block of Staten Road\nearly Sunday morning when the driver lost control and traveled toward\nthe embankment.\n<\/blockquote>\nThese are the troops we train to protect us from foreign enemies.\nWhy are we creating the conditions that kill those same troops\nright here at home?\n

\n-jsq\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What do you see when you zoom in on traffic fatalities in Lowndes County, Georgia? Lots of road deaths on roads recently paved, for one thing. Simon Rogers wrote for the Guardian 22 November 2011, US road accident casualties: every one mapped across America 369,629 people died on America’s roads between 2001 and 2009. Following […]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2,19,88,21,73,449,133],"tags":[3380,8701,3374,7,1329,3375,3376,3377,1183,8731,3373,590,3379,3378,2900,8742],"class_list":["post-1255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government","category-history","category-lowndes-county-commission","category-planning","category-safety","category-transportation","category-vdt","tag-23rd-wing","tag-georgia","tag-ito-world","tag-lowndes-county","tag-moody-air-force-base","tag-national-highway-traffic-safety-administration","tag-nhtsa","tag-openstreetmap","tag-paving","tag-safety","tag-simon-rogers","tag-speed","tag-terrorism","tag-traffic-fatalities","tag-valdosta-daily-times","tag-vdt"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-kf","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1255"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1255\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}