The driver, Jerry Guy, "fled the scene after the accident but later admitted being involved, according to CNN affiliate WXIA-TV. He was sentenced to five years in prison but served only six months. He is serving the remainder of the sentence on probation," CNN noted in July of 2011<http://www.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/07/27/georgia.mother.new.trial/index.html?iref=allsearch> . Nelson's son A.J. died in April 2010. This woman has been on trial for three years while grieving for the death of her son in what was an accident caused by a drunk driver. If Nelson were to be ticketed at all, to be made an example of (because she's a black single mother and American society loves to make an example of black single mothers), the only charge that seems reasonable in this case is "crossing roadway elsewhere than a crosswalk." There's no doubt that pedestrians need to obey rules and watch out for their own safety, but as Nelson's attorney, David Savoy, suggested, "the white stripes of a crosswalk are not impenetrable walls of steel that could have prevented a driver from striking someone crossing the street."
http://shine.yahoo.com/parenting/mom-faces-more-jail-time-drunk-driver-killed-135900784.html
[WS:] I think this is indicative of the American new apartheid system in which car ownership determines your rights as a citizen. Those who drive you have far more rights and privileges than those who don't.
In most cases, these are small things such as the TOTAL lack of safe pedestrian crossings or walkways that are typically found in Europe. Most pedestrian overpasses in this country are build to separate "office" foot traffic (read: white suburban commuters) from "street" foot traffic (read: poor Blacks and Hispanics). To add insult to injury, traffic authorities erect fences in the median to prevent pedestrians from crossing and making it more convenient to drivers. Closing sidewalks for road construction is done in such a way as to make it most convenient to drivers, even if this means long detours to pedestrians.
Public transportation, or rather the poor excuse for it that the US has is a subject in its own. Suffice it to make two observations: 1. You seldom see a white face on a bus and 2. Transit is one of the most vehemently opposed initiatives by white suburbanites.
Since car vs. other means of transportation is one of the main instrument of separating the mostly white suburban class from poor, mostly urban Blacks and Hispanics, the car friendly design of most of the US infrastructure and housing can justifiably be called the new American apartheid system.
-- Wojtek
"An anarchist is a neoliberal without money."