Three pedestrians were struck in the same incident on the evening of Friday, July 27.
The crash occurred just before 9 p.m. near the intersection of east 27th Street and Jackson Avenue. Little is known about what caused the incident at this time, but all three of the pedestrians escaped the crash without serious injuries. It is not known whether the vehicle involved remained at the scene.
“We’re glad that the pedestrians involved were not seriously injured, but the situation as a whole is frustrating,” lamented BikeWalkKC executive director Eric Rogers. “The lack of information that has been released is quite concerning. No one was killed here, but we don’t even know if the driver stayed behind after they hit multiple people. It doesn’t make sense.”
“We are not doing enough to protect pedestrians or to adequately inform the public when incidents like this occur,” noted Eric Bunch, the organization’s policy director. “When we fail to tell the whole story of what happens in incidents like this, we send the message that because these pedestrians chose to walk instead of drive, they don’t matter. The pedestrians struck on Friday night may be physically alright, but there may also be psychological injuries or other elements we’re missing because we fail to follow up.”
Since July 11, we have identified seven pedestrians who have been struck by vehicles in the metro, including the three people injured on Friday. Of those people, two have been killed.
As BikeWalkKC has stated in the past, what deserves the brunt of the blame for these crashes is the culture that values car traffic efficiency over the safety of human lives.
For more information, contact Karen Campbell, director of development and communications, at (816) 205-7056 (ext. 2) or by email at karen.campbell@bikewalkkc.org.
BikeWalkKC believes that crashes are not accidents and clothing is not an excuse.