Responsible reporting about pedestrian fatalities
In the past two days, two pedestrians have been killed while crossing Rockville Pike . Media reports about pedestrian and cyclist fatalities often fail to responsibly portray the nature of these crashes. They may either overtly or implicitly blame the pedestrian or cyclist for getting killed while minimizing the driver's responsibility as well as the role infrastructure and road design play in traffic crashes. Responsible and ethical reporting about the subject of pedestrian and cyclist deaths should follow these best practices as explained in these Columbia Journalism Review (Meg Dalton) and Citylab (Richard Florida) pieces. Crash or collision, not accident. The word "accident" implies a sense of inevitability or that the event was unavoidable. However, there are things that can be done to reduce the number and severity of traffic collisions. Driver, not car . Do not attribute agency to inanimate objects like cars, unless it was a ...