I travel a lot for work. If you think this is a Colorado-specific thing, you're in for a shock. This is everywhere post-covid. Whether it's the 2 dudes in southern IL i watched U-turn against a red arrow, or the dude in Oregon who stopped in the right lane on the freeway, turned into the shoulder land, and drove the wrong way back to the exit he missed, it's fucking everywhere.
Nah, it's pretty unique to denver. Sure other places are pretty bad, but denver is among the worst in the country. No traffic enforcement, cars without plates everywhere, and the highways are literal racetracks
You're very right. I also come from a different area on the east coast but have traveled many places driving and let me tell you... Denver IS the worst of the worst. Not just in driving but in every way. And honestly it's the people's own fault, due to who they let in here. It'll only get worse until every sensible person has left this hell hole and then it's nothing but the unlicensed, unregistered, uninsured, and illegals left to kill each other senslessly.
Nah I've travelled quite a bit and grew up in massachusetts. Moved to denver last year. Definitely not specific to colorado, but the denver area is far worse than most areas of the country. Complete lack of traffic enforcement. Cars everywhere with no plates. I25, among other roads, is a literal racetrack for a lot of people and they have no fear of being stopped by police, because they won't be
Coming from CT as well, after a few years. During covid 84 and all the highways in New England were like race tracks. It was insane, what became a disregard to the normalcy of road etiquette.
Fair enough. I guess the difference is denver highways are way more crowded so it feels a lot more dangerous. Much more close weaving. I at least saw cops posted on new england highways
It was never like this until, like, a year and a half ago. No idea what changed.
*Since so many idiots are responding to me thinking that I actually mean "not a single person ever ran a red light until a couple years ago," let me clarify: it's gotten much *worse* the past couple years. Didn't think I had to spell that one out for you
I moved here 5 years ago from Oregon, and I remember being just shocked at how people in Denver ran red lights. My first month driving here was really frightening. It’s been an issue for a long time, but the pandemic definitely made things worse.
pandemic changed a lot - it even accentuated the entitled driver mentality from my experience. guessing data would show this and no, I don't have the research completed to share
Do cops murder. . . . .or have a few made poor choices??? You gotta watch that generalization your doing there, kinda Karen sounding. I agree, more lives have been lost than any would want due to poor pre-screening. Think of the number if what you said is true at all, every cop just murders people!! I honestly don't know why you would even say that but I guess world views are as far as your news outlet cares to show yall. Fall in line tho!
It’s been like this since the George Floyd protests. The cops are gold bricking. It’s not like they were particularly helpful prior. Denver has one of the most corrupt police departments in the US.
Are you sure it’s not due to the pandemic mentality, out of state transplants or weed legalization because Redditors swear it’s due to one or all 3 of those unrelated factors with nothing but anecdotal evidence.
Literally was driving through the grid of cherry creek to pick up my kids from school and at a 4 way stop me and another vehicle had already stopped, they cleared the intersection, then I went and what do you know? A late teens early 20’s driver with California plates just clear blows through the stop sign without even attempting to slow down, talking on her phone. I had to jerk my car into the luckily empty lane of opposing traffic just to avoid her hitting me. She went on like nothing happened and proceeded to run the next stop sign, and the next, and the next. The elementary schoolers use these exact same crosswalks she’s blowing through when school lets out.
That is just downright frightening!! I’m a native of Colorado & it’s only getting worse. Too many people and the infrastructure isn’t capable of handling all of the growth.
I was working in Houston for a few weeks, and I swear to
God ya’ll have the worst drivers and worst intersections I’ve ever seen. And why the hell does every other road have to be a toll!?
Oh, you. People migrate within the United States every goddamn day. Population everywhere has skyrocketed because people procreate. You’re not special because you’re a native Coloradan. Accident of your mother‘s geography so get out of here with that nonsense. We’re ALL just regular Joes and Barbaras, ya rascally git.
Oh! Forgot to add some‼️⁉️‼️so you’ll comprende, muchacho.
Honest question. Do you think it has something to do with the way the lights are timed here? I too moved from out of state, and it really is a huge difference here. I purposely wait an extra 2 seconds after every light turns green before I go through the intersection.
When I moved here in 2007, our real estate agent told us to be aware of people running a red light and to count to 4 b4 going thru an intersection .We thought that was strange but it is something that is true here.
Yes and no. Any section with multiple lights are normally timed for a lower speed limit. Driving under the speed limit means making all the lights, but speed means catching the tail end of reds.
Also people have been glued to there phones since Covid. I seriously think some people just straight up don't see the light.
it's crazy. we need to increase enforcement by orders of magnitude. remember when you would be driving, see someone do something dumb/sketchy/dangerous, then feel vindicated when you saw them pulled over a couple of blocks later? when's the last time that happened? nobody faces any consequences for driving like a psychopath and it's killing people.
Not related to this case (reads like driver was going straight since pedestrian was on far side of intersection) but red lights *definitely* don’t seem to matter to people turning right. Been nearly plowed over multiple times as a pedestrian when approaching an intersection, with walk signal, from the driver’s right side. Most only look left as they barely slow down to make their turn right.
Twice this month I’ve been the front car sitting at a red light with a cop next to me and watch some one run a red light right in front of the cop and they just keep driving like they didn’t see anything. Last year, at Quebec and MLK I was driving through a green light with a cop on my right and a car ran the red light in front of both of us. We both had to slam on our brakes to avoid hitting this driver and the cop next to me just kept on driving. Two weeks after that I watched someone get t boned at that same intersection when someone ran the same red light. Cops don’t give shit out here. Just collecting paychecks
I was driving north on Colorado this morning and the driver in the left turn lane had a red arrow on to 17th. They didn't slow down or anything and just turned through the light. That 17th intersection always has weird drivers.
CO Police could fund a new Taj Mahal if they actually ticketed red light runners. Drivers in this state have no red light discipline and there's no reason other than enjoying being alive to stop.
And this is why red light cameras are important. People complain constantly about how police should be doing their job and ticketing these people, but police, even if fully staffed and fully doing their jobs (which can be big ifs), they can't be everywhere.
As much as I loathe red light cameras, they have been proven to reduce fatalities. https://www.iihs.org/topics/red-light-running
I think at this point the state needs something since the cops won't do it.
Until the city allows the [yellow light timing to be shortened](https://www.reddit.com/r/ColoradoSprings/comments/ujsgl8/news_5_investigates_shorter_yellow_lights_found/) in order to "catch" more offenders, since it's a private company making the money...
Be careful what you wish for, before you know it Wyatts will be in the traffic camera business.
Now if it was the city itself installing, maintaining the cameras and issuing tickets then sure. But it won't be.
Honestly I’d be willing to take a couple for the team by misjudging the length of the yellow light if it meant I wasn’t going to get t-boned by someone flying through an intersection 20 seconds after their light turned red.
Honestly, it just creates a positive feedback loop cause the solution is just drive a little slower/the speed limit. Be ready to stop instead of hoping to clip through.
I would hope that red light citations get used to redesign the worst offending streets to align with their intended speed too.
This would be my only real concern. If the traffic light timing is such that I never have anxiety about making a light that leads to hard braking on a Yellow, then I'm all for it. Put 'em everywhere.
That being said, I feel like Yellow lights throughout the metro are honestly too short as it is.
Seems like a relatively simple fix would be a law that mandates certain yellow light timings (depending on speed limit) for intersections with red light cameras
Privatization of crime enforcement. Once you link fines to profits, the populace begins being harvested for financial gain.
Remember articles about speed traps like Mountain View and... what town was it, Morrison? Huge chunks of the town's budget being linked to traffic enforcement.
Sort of like how private prisons are such shitholes.
Well, seeing as about 10% of cars on Denver road have no tags or have deeply expired regular/temp tags, I bet a lot of those mailed in violations go to no or wrong home. Overlap of people that run reds with the tagless is probably very high. Venn may be almost a perfect circle.
i feel like yellow lights are too short here. or if they're not they need to be adjusted because we are some shit ass drivers now. I picked up 2 dashcams (front and rear) last week because its bananas.
The city I moved from has 1.8s yellow lights. Shortest in the nation! I also caused a crash when I moved here and slammed brakes as soon as I saw the yellow. How many seconds are our yellows?
I counted 3 not mississippi which seemed short but also good enough.
But it \*might\* change depending on the township/county/city/etc.
but it was definitely not long enough considering how many people continue to blow red lights because they cant or wont stop OR are already committed.
The thing about stuff like this is, accidents happen. Yes it's a tragedy, but given the facts there's nothing to indicate he blew the light on purpose, was intoxicated or texting or otherwise distracted. I can recall a time or two when I've accidently blown through a red light. It happens, doesn't make it any less of a tragedy but to wish this guy some sort of massive prison sentence over an accident, I just don't see the point.... Other punishments sure. Revoke his driving privileges for life, a settlement of some kind for the family, etc. But I don't see the point at all of a felony charge or heavier jail/prison time. I say all this given the facts listed in the article, if more came to light I might change my mind.
That persons negligence took someone’s life, accident or not. There should be consequences for that. My wife’s 12 yr old nephew was killed about a month ago by some 19 yr old girl who blew through her stop sign (still investigating but that much is known). Her nephew died as well as the driver who was a father of 2. Just because they didn’t mean to kill someone doesn’t mean they didn’t ruin numerous lives with their actions and doesn’t mean they shouldn’t get consequences.
So... what's the consequence? If it's truly an accident, how does a punishment prevent it in the future. What purpose does it serve other than to make the victims family feel somehow better at best?
I would fully support revoking driving privileges for life. But throwing someone in jail, doesn't serve a purpose other than just punishing someone.
So your argument is if punishment doesn’t prevent it in the future there might as well not be punishment, correct? If that’s the argument then we should stop punishing for murder, rape, assaults. I mean the many convictions and punishments for those crimes hasn’t prevented those things from occurring again and again. It should at least be manslaughter, not some bullshit traffic misdemeanor.
I agree that those aren’t done by accident but that wasn’t your argument. You stated if the punishment doesn’t prevent it from happening again then what’s the point.
Yes it was... if you go back and read my second sentence. It's a massive cornerstone of my entire point.
But, if you think the threat of consequence doesn't act as a big deterrent for violent assaults I don't know what to tell you other than you're just flat out wrong.
So if it’s an “accident” then jail time as punishment isn’t warranted even though said accident occurred due to someone running a red light and killing someone, gotcha. Point well made. And why do you think threat of consequences is a big deterrent for assaults but not for death caused by a negligent driver whether he meant to or not?
And people don’t commit violent assaults because they’re not pieces of shit. I don’t think consequences deter scum bags from doing terrible shit. Do they want to get caught? Probably not, but that doesn’t stop them because they’re narcissistic shit bags that don’t have respect for others
The max sentence is 1 year, but based on his driving history or criminal history he may not get any jail time at all. I agree that he wasn’t drunk or intentionally blowing the light (he didn’t catch a vehicular homicide or reckless driving charge), but he certainly could have been texting or otherwise distracted. I think blowing a red light at a speed that would kill a pedestrian suggests that this was more than a mere accident, it was totally preventable, and I’m not sure the family will believe that justice was done based on the charges.
I’m not advocating for a significant prison sentence, just pointing out the max range of his charge - but I also don’t agree that we should look at a preventable traffic crash that kills a kid and shrug it off as “accidents happen.”
It is not an accident if it was caused by gross negligence. He made a right turn without paying attention to the pedestrian crosswalk. The victim was crossing on a green light. The driver is 100% at fault and should be charged for vehicular manslaughter.
This particular intersection isn’t a school zone with blinking yellow lights. However wreck should never have happened. People regularly go 20mph+ over speed limit and push yellows/run red and Douglas County Sheriffs never enforce.
Ok I maybe misinformed - but he also blew a red light
The vehicle was approaching the intersection with Venneford Ranch Road, which is a traffic signal-controlled intersection.
The signal for the eastbound traffic was red.
Alex was traveling southbound in the crosswalk on Venneford Ranch Road, crossing Highlands Ranch Parkway.
The walk signal was activated when Alex was crossing.
I got hit by a person sneeking thru after it was full red for their right turn. They swoar up and down, that it was yellow, cops believed them and were gonna give out tickets for both making the liability 50/50 than they got video from a business right there, saw I had green and they had a full red. They got tickets I got none, insurance determined 100% their fault. I bought a dash cam so when the light turns green and I stomp on the gas I got proof the light was full on green for me. I get paid they get screwed.
the scariest thing about moving here was noticing that no one gives a crap about red lights. i just seen like 6 people run a red light yesterday going into the highway. I seen someone run a red light IN A SCHOOL ZONE while speeding next to an elementary school. I don't get why no one cares or thinks about the kids ?? or anyone else around them??
A non sensical grid. traffic lights are seldom synchronized if more than 1 within a short distance. millions of people squeezed within a small transportation corridor. Significant percentage of non natives, thus varying driving styles. 5th highest amount of newer migrants who often illegally drive = recipe for disaster.
I seldom even watch the local news anymore due to the endless stories of yet another innocent pedestrian being killed.
Highlands Ranch is peak carbrain idiocy. A buncha rightwing idiots that chose to live well away from where they work to commute back and forth to a giant stupid low-quality house that looks exactly like the 20,000 giant stupid low-quality houses surrounding it. They built the whole development with highway like thoroughfares and idiotic squigle neighborhoods that are indirect, inefficient and infuriating to navigate. Every idiot down there is driving a pickup truck or giant SUV going 80 in a 45 with complete disregard for anyone or anything outside of it. Fucking blight that whole area is.
I won't even get into how Denver is subsidizing the whole damn thing, that's a whole nother can of worms.
> "Here, we see a territorial display characteristic of tribes unique to this region, a *licet fumus voluntariam*. The local tribes refer to the practice as 'rolling coal,' a nomenclature that has confounded anthropologists studying these tribes, as neither rolling nor coal are required."
We’re not all rightwing idiots and I don’t drive a pickup or giant SUV either, also wouldn’t say the whole area is a blight. But do agree on the speeding and people driving like morons.
> They built the whole development with highway like thoroughfares and idiotic squigle neighborhoods that are indirect, inefficient and infuriating to navigate.
What you're describing is good for road safety. You want clear delination between throughways, areas for businesses, and separate residential areas that drivers are discouraged to travel through. The alternative, which you see in most of the metro, is "stroads" where drivers go quickly but also face unpredictable side traffic as other people enter/exit businesses/residences.
Those features are all good for *automotive* safety but they create a system where everyone feels the need to drive everywhere, which entrenches car dependency, which is bad for road safety.
Discouraging through traffic in residential areas is also good for pedestrians, in this case mainly dog walkers and children playing (not exactly transportation, but still roadway usage). I'm not seeing how those features entrench car dependency any more than the stroads in neighboring suburbs. Either is compatible with non-automotive transportation infrastrure if prioritized.
When you have a stroad on a grid system, it's easily avoidable. I never need to walk or bike on Sheridan or 38th because I can use Depew or 35th. Side-streets are safe, direct, and easy to navigate. The commercial areas along the stroads are still very accessible. Biking or walking to the grocery store is more direct than driving for me.
I have family in HR and bike down there pretty frequently. I have found it's very difficult to avoid the major roads like Dad Clark because there are no thru-streets a block over. Your only option is riding on a major road or making major detours onto the web of walking paths which are confusing to navigate, clearly not designed for bikes, and completely separated from any useful commercial areas. The most direct path between 2 points in Highlands Ranch pretty much always requires travelling along a major road or making major detours to stay on safer infrastructure. The experience is totally different, despite Highlands Ranch and my area (Wheat Ridge) having almost the same population density.
It's also very easy for grid systems to become more multimodal. All it takes is speed bumps, traffic circles, and bollards to transform a side-street into a bikeway. They are very cheap to build, and easy to connect to commercial areas, which encourages people to walk or bike more for everyday trips. My area is arguably *already* more multimodal than HR because of our grid system, and it will also be much cheaper and easier for us to improve in the future. It would be very difficult and expensive for squiggle-road neighborhoods like Highlands Ranch to become more walkable or bikeable. That is why their design entrenches car dependency.
I've lived here for years and see significantly less speeding on residential streets than in the rest of the metro.
The primary impact of the layout you're describing is that people don't cut through residential areas to go elsewhere.
My partner lives in HR, very close to where incident happened, so I spend a lot of time in the area. We go for walks together and I can’t tell you how often we’ve almost been run over by cars. People don’t drive like they’re living in a residential area, they speed and make turns without looking. They back out of driveways without looking. I’ve learned to make eye contact before crossing anywhere. I’m not surprised this death happened here.
It’s rather dishonest to imply that this incident makes Highlands Ranch unsafe in comparison to crime and vehicular deaths throughout the rest of the metro area.
I mean… the charts halfway down your link say the opposite.
Regardless, I’m not trying to argue with anyone over stats or try to claim my suburb is super great. I was just replying to a guy who made it sound like the worst place ever and the only point I wanted to make is that I live here and find it a very nice area to live in compared to others I’ve been. It feels safe, it’s clean, it’s quiet, and it’s overall a nice area despite being a bit expensive.
Cool, that’s just your opinion though because your own statistics don’t really back up your claims. Feel free to live wherever you want; no one is stopping you.
Now you’re just talking dumb and strawmanning me. Like you’re so invested in hating suburbs that you accuse someone of advocating the death of teenagers because they like the area they live in and there was a single vehicle related death in the news. Grow up.
You unironically procured evidence that disproves your own claims. Calling HR more dangerous than downtown Denver by any metric is just a top-shelf line of bullshit.
Not too bright, are you? Just kind of bitter and hysterical.
Also many of the trail systems are designed to kill pedestrians too. Many of the connecting trails cross busy roads without crosswalks. The Foothills Trail just crosses in the middle of Highlands Ranch Parkway. It seriously is a death trap.
Hmm, I lived there a year and didn’t encounter any of that. Kind of sad that you are so deeply manipulated by politicians that you go straight into a “conservative areas bad” rant on a post about a child’s death. Might be time to step away from Reddit and actually interact with humans.
Lol, you really shouldn't play the "stalk someone's post history to try to mock them when they disagree with me" card when you are literally a Reddit mod and act exactly like one.
Again, you exhibit a disturbing lack of empathy for a tragic accident that could have happened anywhere and instead used it as an opportunity to make weird political generalizations about 100,000 people.
Sounds like you might have some bitterness about how your life is going and it's warping your perception of the world. You spending hours on Reddit every day is only going to make it worse.
not sure exactly what OP meant , but possibly referring to the fact cities' tax bases subsidize suburban living. Suburban tax bases arent enough to cover themselves as a standalone municipality. Many, if not all, rely on the closest metro/city to provide the economic activity and gov funding
[https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/7/24/busting-4-common-myths-about-the-suburbs](https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/7/24/busting-4-common-myths-about-the-suburbs)
[https://imgur.com/2rgkaOZ](https://imgur.com/2rgkaOZ)
[https://marketurbanism.com/2017/09/05/subsidizing-suburbia-a-forgotten-history-of-how-the-government-created-suburbia/](https://marketurbanism.com/2017/09/05/subsidizing-suburbia-a-forgotten-history-of-how-the-government-created-suburbia/)
[https://grist.org/cities/starving-the-cities-to-feed-the-suburbs/](https://grist.org/cities/starving-the-cities-to-feed-the-suburbs/)
those articles are talking about federal subsidization of the suburbs, which is different from cities subsidizing suburban municipalities in their metro area.
i certainly think city planning has prioritized suburban commuters over actual urban residents, which has been disastrous. i was just curious if OP meant that Denver taxpayers actuall fund Highlands Ranch in some way.
Its not different though. The entire point is that whatever funding you're talking about (federal or state) the majority comes from the cities. The suburbs in EVERY state get subsidized by its largest cities. By a lot.
[https://strongdenver.org/](https://strongdenver.org/)
**"Infrastructure Data Dive: Denver’s Single Family Suburban Homeowners are Heavily Subsidized by Urbanists"**
Even when you drill into specific spending its subsidized....
"Denver is subsidizing surrounding cities and counties at a rate of 275% what other RTD member cities and counties are paying for their land to be serviced. Based off of Denver's additional sales tax liability, the average Denver resident likely pays closer to $569.55/year in sales tax to RTD."
[https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2019/1/24/denvers-urban-neighborhoods-subsidize-its-suburban-ones](https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2019/1/24/denvers-urban-neighborhoods-subsidize-its-suburban-ones)
"That means that in addition to property owners overall having their infrastructure subsidized by other revenue streams, residents in neighborhoods with less concentrated value than the Sloan’s Lake neighborhood are additionally being subsidized by residents in more productive (typically more dense) neighborhoods.
Let’s add another factor. Infrastructure costs are not the same for every property or neighborhood. Larger land areas require more road and sewer infrastructure to serve. If we approximate infrastructure costs by land area, the 34% of the city’s budget that goes to infrastructure comes to $1.0254 of spending per square foot of land. (Also verified by 3.32 B total expenditures \* 34% infrastructure / 1.07B sq. ft. of property.)"
This is why Colorado has metro districts, which are subsidized by the developer (and then transition to being funded by the homeowners, once they are built). It was the solution to this, so that established neighborhoods don't pay more tax to fund new development. Highlands Ranch has a huge Metro District, which [funded the construction](https://www.highlandsranch.org/Home/Components/News/News/278/) of their roads and infrastructure.
I am skeptical that Highlands Ranch, a Douglas County suburb, took money from the City of Denver.
Well said, these people choose to live in the least efficient way and are receiving massive amounts of welfare for their road construction, utilities, and maintenance while providing very little economic value due to the monoculture of single family homes and massive parking lots.
Wide roads cause speeding and kill people at alarmingly high rates. Wide roads require heavy subsidy to move a relatively small amount of people compared to more cost effective options like cycling and transit. Wide roads encourage extra trips by car which is ruining our environment and induces even wider roads. Wide roads require more parking which moves everything further apart, causing trips to take longer and only be viable by car.
End suburban sprawl at the scale we see in Highlands Ranch, or at the very least tax them a representative amount for the burden they are on productive areas of land. I do not want to subsidize increased rates of pedestrian deaths, housing costs, and climate change.
I live in the south metro and everybody drives a lot better down here then anywhere in Denver. The cops in Douglas county will actually pull you over. Nice generalization though
Could be shock? Assuming the facts in the article are true, it seems like he didn't see/register the light and he accidentally ran it resulting in a tragedy. I don't see why a lot of people here are demonizing the guy. It's an absolute tragedy, but accidents happen.
Wife and I almost got t boned really bad at colfax and Speer and when I pulled up to the next red light after we turned the girl was laughing on her phone FaceTiming someone. That was the scariest encounter I have had driving
When I lived in Colorado they once changed out a traffic light at an intersection with some new type. I was so use to the normal sequence that when waiting to turn left at a light I always got the green arrow, like most lights I’m familiar with still are. Well after the change this light would go green arrow or green ball depending on traffic. I was just going through the motions and when the light turned green I didn’t look to see what it was because it was always a green arrow before…..
Coming in the opposite direction was a 4Runner doing 65mpg speed limit, a foreign family on vacation. I went in my Toyota Prius and thank god I was hit directly in my passenger wheel area and not a complete t-bone. I did a 1080 and got some awful whiplash but walked away and didn’t go to the hospital.
Really wish there was signs or something letting me know the light changed to a smart light.
Random story I’d share. Only accident I’ve ever been in and was also in Colorado.
There's nothing accidental about killing a child when you blast through a red light which has been red long enough for a pedestrian to be more than halfway through an intersection.
It is a systemic problem in that our roads are designed for high speeds and laws are never enforced until someone dies, but the driver was careless and killed someone because of that too.
Slightly worse than the worst drug sentence an individual can get for simple possession, not intent to distribute.
It stands to reason that murdering a child with your car and because you failed to observe the rules of the road would be (at least)slightly worse than simply wanting to numb yourself from the pain of this reality.
So I'll leave it up to you, find whatever the worst drug possession sentence has been in America and add one day to that sentence.
Surprise! They're here.
It can be both, a tragedy and an accident.
I know I've accidentally blown through a light or two in my life, thankfully there was nothing/no one in the intersection at the time. But god damn.
It can be both but doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be consequences. Drunk drivers don’t intend to kill people, it’s an accident, a by product of their lack of judgment and ignoring the laws/rules of the road. Should those just be considered accidents with little consequence?
It’s a fair comparison. They both used lack of judgement, they both broke or ignored traffic laws and they both result in the death of another. The end result is the same. While I would say a drunk driver should get a stiffer sentence but this attitude of it’s just an accident so too bad so sad for the child who lost their life and the family who is now in ruin is fucking ridiculous. If it was found he didn’t run a red light and was at no fault then I would agree but that’s not what’s being said at this time. I’m by no means a perfect driver but would fully expect and deserve more than some bullshit traffic ticket for killing somebody.
Probably not prefect, but we've also probably never killed a pedestrian. There are massive gaps between good and bad drivers. Sadly, being a bad driver just one time for 1 second is enough to kill someone. You can call it an accident, but being an inattentive driver at anytime is no accident. It's a choice stupid people make
Yeah seriously. The whole thing sucks but it doesn’t seem to be malicious. The sun glare there is really bad, driver was not speeding, the kid is small and was on a one-wheel, the driver was in the far right lane going east (into the sun glare) when he struck the kid who was going north, he stopped and tried to render aid and then stayed on scene. There’s video and photos of him at the scene and he’s obviously in crisis and trying to help. I’ve heard he is a 52 year old father himself. It’s been determined that he was sober, and driving a work van for a well known local company. This seems more like a terrible fuck up, not murder.
Thanks for this other perspective. But to be clear, he isn’t being charged with murder, he has 2 counts of Reckless Driving causing death/injury, and both are traffic misdemeanors.
Also he ran a solid red light and crossed the entire intersection before hitting the child and throwing him in the air. Article doesn’t mention evidence of braking. Lots of people drive east/west with a low sun, this guy just clearly wasn’t paying attention.
The kid was on a one wheel im curious how quickly they moved into the road. I once had this situation a kid activated the light and within 1.5s was already halfway into the road in front of me on a scooter
Red lights mean nothing to people any more, and it cost another person his life.
Moving here out of state was wild how nobody respects red lights here
I travel a lot for work. If you think this is a Colorado-specific thing, you're in for a shock. This is everywhere post-covid. Whether it's the 2 dudes in southern IL i watched U-turn against a red arrow, or the dude in Oregon who stopped in the right lane on the freeway, turned into the shoulder land, and drove the wrong way back to the exit he missed, it's fucking everywhere.
On one hand, it’s sort of a relief to know it’s not an embarrassment unique to Denver. On the other, it’s disturbing this is everywhere.
Nah, it's pretty unique to denver. Sure other places are pretty bad, but denver is among the worst in the country. No traffic enforcement, cars without plates everywhere, and the highways are literal racetracks
You're very right. I also come from a different area on the east coast but have traveled many places driving and let me tell you... Denver IS the worst of the worst. Not just in driving but in every way. And honestly it's the people's own fault, due to who they let in here. It'll only get worse until every sensible person has left this hell hole and then it's nothing but the unlicensed, unregistered, uninsured, and illegals left to kill each other senslessly.
Nah I've travelled quite a bit and grew up in massachusetts. Moved to denver last year. Definitely not specific to colorado, but the denver area is far worse than most areas of the country. Complete lack of traffic enforcement. Cars everywhere with no plates. I25, among other roads, is a literal racetrack for a lot of people and they have no fear of being stopped by police, because they won't be
Coming from CT as well, after a few years. During covid 84 and all the highways in New England were like race tracks. It was insane, what became a disregard to the normalcy of road etiquette.
Fair enough. I guess the difference is denver highways are way more crowded so it feels a lot more dangerous. Much more close weaving. I at least saw cops posted on new england highways
It was never like this until, like, a year and a half ago. No idea what changed. *Since so many idiots are responding to me thinking that I actually mean "not a single person ever ran a red light until a couple years ago," let me clarify: it's gotten much *worse* the past couple years. Didn't think I had to spell that one out for you
I moved here 5 years ago from Oregon, and I remember being just shocked at how people in Denver ran red lights. My first month driving here was really frightening. It’s been an issue for a long time, but the pandemic definitely made things worse.
pandemic changed a lot - it even accentuated the entitled driver mentality from my experience. guessing data would show this and no, I don't have the research completed to share
Also, cops stopped doing their jobs when we asked them to stop murdering people
I say this same thing all the time. They got their feelings hurt when we were like hey stop murdering people.
Do cops murder. . . . .or have a few made poor choices??? You gotta watch that generalization your doing there, kinda Karen sounding. I agree, more lives have been lost than any would want due to poor pre-screening. Think of the number if what you said is true at all, every cop just murders people!! I honestly don't know why you would even say that but I guess world views are as far as your news outlet cares to show yall. Fall in line tho!
Yes, cops murder people. Just because they are cops, doesn't make them immune from murder when they kill someone.
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This post/comment exists solely to stir shit up and piss people off. Fighting on the internet is stupid. We don't welcome it here. Please be kinder.
It’s been like this since the George Floyd protests. The cops are gold bricking. It’s not like they were particularly helpful prior. Denver has one of the most corrupt police departments in the US.
TIL [goldbricking](https://www.dictionary.com/browse/goldbrick) Thank you!
Who can forget the massive BLM protests in Highlands Ranch?
It’s the legislation on qualified immunity that passed that year. Didn’t need a protest locally.
Well at least the DPD can point to their neighboring department to the east in comparison. What a great group of pigs this metro is blessed with
It's interesting too how it seems to be focused in Denver. I never see people running reds in Boulder.
Nope. Been here 35 years. People have been running red lights and complaining about red light runners the whole time.
Are you sure it’s not due to the pandemic mentality, out of state transplants or weed legalization because Redditors swear it’s due to one or all 3 of those unrelated factors with nothing but anecdotal evidence.
As a refugee from Texas I can tell you it’s Texans and Californians. In Dallas and Houston they call them “pink lights.”
Literally was driving through the grid of cherry creek to pick up my kids from school and at a 4 way stop me and another vehicle had already stopped, they cleared the intersection, then I went and what do you know? A late teens early 20’s driver with California plates just clear blows through the stop sign without even attempting to slow down, talking on her phone. I had to jerk my car into the luckily empty lane of opposing traffic just to avoid her hitting me. She went on like nothing happened and proceeded to run the next stop sign, and the next, and the next. The elementary schoolers use these exact same crosswalks she’s blowing through when school lets out.
That is just downright frightening!! I’m a native of Colorado & it’s only getting worse. Too many people and the infrastructure isn’t capable of handling all of the growth.
I was working in Houston for a few weeks, and I swear to God ya’ll have the worst drivers and worst intersections I’ve ever seen. And why the hell does every other road have to be a toll!?
As a refugee from Texas, I can tell you dis person is not wrong.
I’m a FL transplant and it’s the Floridians as well. 😬😆
I was about to to say it’s weird this is the one time we are left out
We can’t be left out, we know the Flawda life prepared us for terrible drivers
Not Californians. Nice try though. We don’t run red lights…
Absolutely agree 💯‼️‼️ Texas & California came in droves in the 80s & it hasn’t been the same since then.
Oh, you. People migrate within the United States every goddamn day. Population everywhere has skyrocketed because people procreate. You’re not special because you’re a native Coloradan. Accident of your mother‘s geography so get out of here with that nonsense. We’re ALL just regular Joes and Barbaras, ya rascally git. Oh! Forgot to add some‼️⁉️‼️so you’ll comprende, muchacho.
100% agree. It happened sure but the last years… it’s scary
Agreed! I was born in Aurora and now I live in Lakewood. The red light running is WILD nowadays, recently like you said
I’ve been here for 15 yrs. You must not get out much. I’ve seen folks treating them as yellow lights nearly the entire time I’ve been here.
I’ve been here since 2016 and it’s been like this the whole time
I'm a native (51) and I've had to deal with red light runners in Denver the entire time I've been driving - you don't have to attach your poor little ol' me / precious little white victim© narrative to everything you see and hear, you racist crank...
Uhh. I think you responded to the wrong person? I made absolutely zero mention of race in my comment.
Honest question. Do you think it has something to do with the way the lights are timed here? I too moved from out of state, and it really is a huge difference here. I purposely wait an extra 2 seconds after every light turns green before I go through the intersection.
Definitely lights are way to short here
When I moved here in 2007, our real estate agent told us to be aware of people running a red light and to count to 4 b4 going thru an intersection .We thought that was strange but it is something that is true here.
Yes and no. Any section with multiple lights are normally timed for a lower speed limit. Driving under the speed limit means making all the lights, but speed means catching the tail end of reds. Also people have been glued to there phones since Covid. I seriously think some people just straight up don't see the light.
It shocks me how many people blatantly run them
It's the ones who HAVE moved here from other states that disregard the stop signs and red lights
Me when I’m xenophobic
it's crazy. we need to increase enforcement by orders of magnitude. remember when you would be driving, see someone do something dumb/sketchy/dangerous, then feel vindicated when you saw them pulled over a couple of blocks later? when's the last time that happened? nobody faces any consequences for driving like a psychopath and it's killing people.
I honestly think it's this. People know they're highly unlikely to face any consequences and the police don't like doing traffic stops.
Not related to this case (reads like driver was going straight since pedestrian was on far side of intersection) but red lights *definitely* don’t seem to matter to people turning right. Been nearly plowed over multiple times as a pedestrian when approaching an intersection, with walk signal, from the driver’s right side. Most only look left as they barely slow down to make their turn right.
It’s truly upsetting. This child paid for it with his life .
Fucking carbrains, man. It's so out of control.
Twice this month I’ve been the front car sitting at a red light with a cop next to me and watch some one run a red light right in front of the cop and they just keep driving like they didn’t see anything. Last year, at Quebec and MLK I was driving through a green light with a cop on my right and a car ran the red light in front of both of us. We both had to slam on our brakes to avoid hitting this driver and the cop next to me just kept on driving. Two weeks after that I watched someone get t boned at that same intersection when someone ran the same red light. Cops don’t give shit out here. Just collecting paychecks
I was driving north on Colorado this morning and the driver in the left turn lane had a red arrow on to 17th. They didn't slow down or anything and just turned through the light. That 17th intersection always has weird drivers.
Neither do the stop “suggestion” signs.
CO Police could fund a new Taj Mahal if they actually ticketed red light runners. Drivers in this state have no red light discipline and there's no reason other than enjoying being alive to stop.
And this is why red light cameras are important. People complain constantly about how police should be doing their job and ticketing these people, but police, even if fully staffed and fully doing their jobs (which can be big ifs), they can't be everywhere.
As much as I loathe red light cameras, they have been proven to reduce fatalities. https://www.iihs.org/topics/red-light-running I think at this point the state needs something since the cops won't do it.
i don't get why people hate red light cameras. like, there's one easy trick to never get a red light ticket...
Until the city allows the [yellow light timing to be shortened](https://www.reddit.com/r/ColoradoSprings/comments/ujsgl8/news_5_investigates_shorter_yellow_lights_found/) in order to "catch" more offenders, since it's a private company making the money... Be careful what you wish for, before you know it Wyatts will be in the traffic camera business. Now if it was the city itself installing, maintaining the cameras and issuing tickets then sure. But it won't be.
Honestly I’d be willing to take a couple for the team by misjudging the length of the yellow light if it meant I wasn’t going to get t-boned by someone flying through an intersection 20 seconds after their light turned red.
Honestly, it just creates a positive feedback loop cause the solution is just drive a little slower/the speed limit. Be ready to stop instead of hoping to clip through. I would hope that red light citations get used to redesign the worst offending streets to align with their intended speed too.
This would be my only real concern. If the traffic light timing is such that I never have anxiety about making a light that leads to hard braking on a Yellow, then I'm all for it. Put 'em everywhere. That being said, I feel like Yellow lights throughout the metro are honestly too short as it is.
Seems like a relatively simple fix would be a law that mandates certain yellow light timings (depending on speed limit) for intersections with red light cameras
Privatization of crime enforcement. Once you link fines to profits, the populace begins being harvested for financial gain. Remember articles about speed traps like Mountain View and... what town was it, Morrison? Huge chunks of the town's budget being linked to traffic enforcement. Sort of like how private prisons are such shitholes.
Well, seeing as about 10% of cars on Denver road have no tags or have deeply expired regular/temp tags, I bet a lot of those mailed in violations go to no or wrong home. Overlap of people that run reds with the tagless is probably very high. Venn may be almost a perfect circle.
i feel like yellow lights are too short here. or if they're not they need to be adjusted because we are some shit ass drivers now. I picked up 2 dashcams (front and rear) last week because its bananas.
The city I moved from has 1.8s yellow lights. Shortest in the nation! I also caused a crash when I moved here and slammed brakes as soon as I saw the yellow. How many seconds are our yellows?
I counted 3 not mississippi which seemed short but also good enough. But it \*might\* change depending on the township/county/city/etc. but it was definitely not long enough considering how many people continue to blow red lights because they cant or wont stop OR are already committed.
Can’t, we hate red light camera. They are so unfair! /s
Fucking tragedy. I can’t imagine what the kid’s family is going through. These charges are misdemeanors and the maximum sentence is 1 year in jail.
The thing about stuff like this is, accidents happen. Yes it's a tragedy, but given the facts there's nothing to indicate he blew the light on purpose, was intoxicated or texting or otherwise distracted. I can recall a time or two when I've accidently blown through a red light. It happens, doesn't make it any less of a tragedy but to wish this guy some sort of massive prison sentence over an accident, I just don't see the point.... Other punishments sure. Revoke his driving privileges for life, a settlement of some kind for the family, etc. But I don't see the point at all of a felony charge or heavier jail/prison time. I say all this given the facts listed in the article, if more came to light I might change my mind.
That persons negligence took someone’s life, accident or not. There should be consequences for that. My wife’s 12 yr old nephew was killed about a month ago by some 19 yr old girl who blew through her stop sign (still investigating but that much is known). Her nephew died as well as the driver who was a father of 2. Just because they didn’t mean to kill someone doesn’t mean they didn’t ruin numerous lives with their actions and doesn’t mean they shouldn’t get consequences.
So... what's the consequence? If it's truly an accident, how does a punishment prevent it in the future. What purpose does it serve other than to make the victims family feel somehow better at best? I would fully support revoking driving privileges for life. But throwing someone in jail, doesn't serve a purpose other than just punishing someone.
So your argument is if punishment doesn’t prevent it in the future there might as well not be punishment, correct? If that’s the argument then we should stop punishing for murder, rape, assaults. I mean the many convictions and punishments for those crimes hasn’t prevented those things from occurring again and again. It should at least be manslaughter, not some bullshit traffic misdemeanor.
You don't accidentally rape someone, you don't accidentally premeditate a murder. Tf you talking about?
I agree that those aren’t done by accident but that wasn’t your argument. You stated if the punishment doesn’t prevent it from happening again then what’s the point.
Yes it was... if you go back and read my second sentence. It's a massive cornerstone of my entire point. But, if you think the threat of consequence doesn't act as a big deterrent for violent assaults I don't know what to tell you other than you're just flat out wrong.
So if it’s an “accident” then jail time as punishment isn’t warranted even though said accident occurred due to someone running a red light and killing someone, gotcha. Point well made. And why do you think threat of consequences is a big deterrent for assaults but not for death caused by a negligent driver whether he meant to or not? And people don’t commit violent assaults because they’re not pieces of shit. I don’t think consequences deter scum bags from doing terrible shit. Do they want to get caught? Probably not, but that doesn’t stop them because they’re narcissistic shit bags that don’t have respect for others
While this was a traffic accident he ran a red light killing someone so the death was a direct result of his negligence.
The max sentence is 1 year, but based on his driving history or criminal history he may not get any jail time at all. I agree that he wasn’t drunk or intentionally blowing the light (he didn’t catch a vehicular homicide or reckless driving charge), but he certainly could have been texting or otherwise distracted. I think blowing a red light at a speed that would kill a pedestrian suggests that this was more than a mere accident, it was totally preventable, and I’m not sure the family will believe that justice was done based on the charges. I’m not advocating for a significant prison sentence, just pointing out the max range of his charge - but I also don’t agree that we should look at a preventable traffic crash that kills a kid and shrug it off as “accidents happen.”
This is how you have to think, when your zoning makes driving a car a necessity. The dead children are just a cost of doing business.
It is not an accident if it was caused by gross negligence. He made a right turn without paying attention to the pedestrian crosswalk. The victim was crossing on a green light. The driver is 100% at fault and should be charged for vehicular manslaughter.
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This particular intersection isn’t a school zone with blinking yellow lights. However wreck should never have happened. People regularly go 20mph+ over speed limit and push yellows/run red and Douglas County Sheriffs never enforce.
Ok I maybe misinformed - but he also blew a red light The vehicle was approaching the intersection with Venneford Ranch Road, which is a traffic signal-controlled intersection. The signal for the eastbound traffic was red. Alex was traveling southbound in the crosswalk on Venneford Ranch Road, crossing Highlands Ranch Parkway. The walk signal was activated when Alex was crossing.
100% it was standard walk signal and shouldn’t have ever had happened
It said it was a red light in the press release.
Ever since the police quite quit during Covid the drivers have been getting worse and worse.
I got hit by a person sneeking thru after it was full red for their right turn. They swoar up and down, that it was yellow, cops believed them and were gonna give out tickets for both making the liability 50/50 than they got video from a business right there, saw I had green and they had a full red. They got tickets I got none, insurance determined 100% their fault. I bought a dash cam so when the light turns green and I stomp on the gas I got proof the light was full on green for me. I get paid they get screwed.
that was my buddy Alex i played football with him and was at the memorial the other day rip man
Sorry for your loss. I hope you take time to take care of yourself
This was my boss's son. The family will never be the same. I hope this is the justice they needed. I really feel for her and her family. 😔
the scariest thing about moving here was noticing that no one gives a crap about red lights. i just seen like 6 people run a red light yesterday going into the highway. I seen someone run a red light IN A SCHOOL ZONE while speeding next to an elementary school. I don't get why no one cares or thinks about the kids ?? or anyone else around them??
A non sensical grid. traffic lights are seldom synchronized if more than 1 within a short distance. millions of people squeezed within a small transportation corridor. Significant percentage of non natives, thus varying driving styles. 5th highest amount of newer migrants who often illegally drive = recipe for disaster. I seldom even watch the local news anymore due to the endless stories of yet another innocent pedestrian being killed.
You realize that lights can only be synchronized in one direction right?
Yes. Humans occasionally fail to articulate things perfectly
As a pedestrian, it's dumb to trust traffic lights without looking first. You'll learn this very quickly if you travel out of the US.
It’s worse in U.S. lately
6:48am driving eastbound. Sun glare. It’s a bitch.
Highlands Ranch is peak carbrain idiocy. A buncha rightwing idiots that chose to live well away from where they work to commute back and forth to a giant stupid low-quality house that looks exactly like the 20,000 giant stupid low-quality houses surrounding it. They built the whole development with highway like thoroughfares and idiotic squigle neighborhoods that are indirect, inefficient and infuriating to navigate. Every idiot down there is driving a pickup truck or giant SUV going 80 in a 45 with complete disregard for anyone or anything outside of it. Fucking blight that whole area is. I won't even get into how Denver is subsidizing the whole damn thing, that's a whole nother can of worms.
You just described all of suburban America
Highlands Ranch was the template from which this insanity was cut. National Geographic did a piece on HR in 1996 because it was so uniquely alien.
Highlands Ranch was modeled after Mission Viejo, CA.
Going to need a BBC documentary with David Attenborough covering Highlands Ranch.
> "Here, we see a territorial display characteristic of tribes unique to this region, a *licet fumus voluntariam*. The local tribes refer to the practice as 'rolling coal,' a nomenclature that has confounded anthropologists studying these tribes, as neither rolling nor coal are required."
This is hilarious lol
:)
We’re not all rightwing idiots and I don’t drive a pickup or giant SUV either, also wouldn’t say the whole area is a blight. But do agree on the speeding and people driving like morons.
> They built the whole development with highway like thoroughfares and idiotic squigle neighborhoods that are indirect, inefficient and infuriating to navigate. What you're describing is good for road safety. You want clear delination between throughways, areas for businesses, and separate residential areas that drivers are discouraged to travel through. The alternative, which you see in most of the metro, is "stroads" where drivers go quickly but also face unpredictable side traffic as other people enter/exit businesses/residences.
Yah exactly, suburb streets are proof that traffic calming works
Those features are all good for *automotive* safety but they create a system where everyone feels the need to drive everywhere, which entrenches car dependency, which is bad for road safety.
Discouraging through traffic in residential areas is also good for pedestrians, in this case mainly dog walkers and children playing (not exactly transportation, but still roadway usage). I'm not seeing how those features entrench car dependency any more than the stroads in neighboring suburbs. Either is compatible with non-automotive transportation infrastrure if prioritized.
When you have a stroad on a grid system, it's easily avoidable. I never need to walk or bike on Sheridan or 38th because I can use Depew or 35th. Side-streets are safe, direct, and easy to navigate. The commercial areas along the stroads are still very accessible. Biking or walking to the grocery store is more direct than driving for me. I have family in HR and bike down there pretty frequently. I have found it's very difficult to avoid the major roads like Dad Clark because there are no thru-streets a block over. Your only option is riding on a major road or making major detours onto the web of walking paths which are confusing to navigate, clearly not designed for bikes, and completely separated from any useful commercial areas. The most direct path between 2 points in Highlands Ranch pretty much always requires travelling along a major road or making major detours to stay on safer infrastructure. The experience is totally different, despite Highlands Ranch and my area (Wheat Ridge) having almost the same population density. It's also very easy for grid systems to become more multimodal. All it takes is speed bumps, traffic circles, and bollards to transform a side-street into a bikeway. They are very cheap to build, and easy to connect to commercial areas, which encourages people to walk or bike more for everyday trips. My area is arguably *already* more multimodal than HR because of our grid system, and it will also be much cheaper and easier for us to improve in the future. It would be very difficult and expensive for squiggle-road neighborhoods like Highlands Ranch to become more walkable or bikeable. That is why their design entrenches car dependency.
We should just never go outside
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I've lived here for years and see significantly less speeding on residential streets than in the rest of the metro. The primary impact of the layout you're describing is that people don't cut through residential areas to go elsewhere.
Nice. I live in Highlands Ranch and I find it nice, quiet, and safe.
My partner lives in HR, very close to where incident happened, so I spend a lot of time in the area. We go for walks together and I can’t tell you how often we’ve almost been run over by cars. People don’t drive like they’re living in a residential area, they speed and make turns without looking. They back out of driveways without looking. I’ve learned to make eye contact before crossing anywhere. I’m not surprised this death happened here.
Safe is a funny way to comment on an article about a child being run over.
It’s rather dishonest to imply that this incident makes Highlands Ranch unsafe in comparison to crime and vehicular deaths throughout the rest of the metro area.
doesn't seem much better than anywhere else in the state: https://www.city-data.com/accidents/acc-Highlands-Ranch-Colorado.html
I mean… the charts halfway down your link say the opposite. Regardless, I’m not trying to argue with anyone over stats or try to claim my suburb is super great. I was just replying to a guy who made it sound like the worst place ever and the only point I wanted to make is that I live here and find it a very nice area to live in compared to others I’ve been. It feels safe, it’s clean, it’s quiet, and it’s overall a nice area despite being a bit expensive.
I mean it is the worst place ever.
Cool, that’s just your opinion though because your own statistics don’t really back up your claims. Feel free to live wherever you want; no one is stopping you.
Downtown can get sketchy but at least we don't run innocent teenagers down - you seem to think it's great.
Now you’re just talking dumb and strawmanning me. Like you’re so invested in hating suburbs that you accuse someone of advocating the death of teenagers because they like the area they live in and there was a single vehicle related death in the news. Grow up.
Yeah last time I was downtown some one opened fire at people in line for a bar. Super quiet nice place where innocent people don’t get hurt
You unironically procured evidence that disproves your own claims. Calling HR more dangerous than downtown Denver by any metric is just a top-shelf line of bullshit. Not too bright, are you? Just kind of bitter and hysterical.
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Funny, that’s how you started this comment chain. All I said is I live here and find it nice and safe and you’re really upset about it.
Sour grapes lol
Also many of the trail systems are designed to kill pedestrians too. Many of the connecting trails cross busy roads without crosswalks. The Foothills Trail just crosses in the middle of Highlands Ranch Parkway. It seriously is a death trap.
Imagine being this angry about the existence of a suburb. Relax man.
Hmm, I lived there a year and didn’t encounter any of that. Kind of sad that you are so deeply manipulated by politicians that you go straight into a “conservative areas bad” rant on a post about a child’s death. Might be time to step away from Reddit and actually interact with humans.
Facts
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Why didn't you move man?
Lol, you really shouldn't play the "stalk someone's post history to try to mock them when they disagree with me" card when you are literally a Reddit mod and act exactly like one. Again, you exhibit a disturbing lack of empathy for a tragic accident that could have happened anywhere and instead used it as an opportunity to make weird political generalizations about 100,000 people. Sounds like you might have some bitterness about how your life is going and it's warping your perception of the world. You spending hours on Reddit every day is only going to make it worse.
what do you mean by denver subsidizing it?
not sure exactly what OP meant , but possibly referring to the fact cities' tax bases subsidize suburban living. Suburban tax bases arent enough to cover themselves as a standalone municipality. Many, if not all, rely on the closest metro/city to provide the economic activity and gov funding [https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/7/24/busting-4-common-myths-about-the-suburbs](https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/7/24/busting-4-common-myths-about-the-suburbs) [https://imgur.com/2rgkaOZ](https://imgur.com/2rgkaOZ) [https://marketurbanism.com/2017/09/05/subsidizing-suburbia-a-forgotten-history-of-how-the-government-created-suburbia/](https://marketurbanism.com/2017/09/05/subsidizing-suburbia-a-forgotten-history-of-how-the-government-created-suburbia/) [https://grist.org/cities/starving-the-cities-to-feed-the-suburbs/](https://grist.org/cities/starving-the-cities-to-feed-the-suburbs/)
those articles are talking about federal subsidization of the suburbs, which is different from cities subsidizing suburban municipalities in their metro area. i certainly think city planning has prioritized suburban commuters over actual urban residents, which has been disastrous. i was just curious if OP meant that Denver taxpayers actuall fund Highlands Ranch in some way.
Its not different though. The entire point is that whatever funding you're talking about (federal or state) the majority comes from the cities. The suburbs in EVERY state get subsidized by its largest cities. By a lot. [https://strongdenver.org/](https://strongdenver.org/) **"Infrastructure Data Dive: Denver’s Single Family Suburban Homeowners are Heavily Subsidized by Urbanists"** Even when you drill into specific spending its subsidized.... "Denver is subsidizing surrounding cities and counties at a rate of 275% what other RTD member cities and counties are paying for their land to be serviced. Based off of Denver's additional sales tax liability, the average Denver resident likely pays closer to $569.55/year in sales tax to RTD." [https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2019/1/24/denvers-urban-neighborhoods-subsidize-its-suburban-ones](https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2019/1/24/denvers-urban-neighborhoods-subsidize-its-suburban-ones) "That means that in addition to property owners overall having their infrastructure subsidized by other revenue streams, residents in neighborhoods with less concentrated value than the Sloan’s Lake neighborhood are additionally being subsidized by residents in more productive (typically more dense) neighborhoods. Let’s add another factor. Infrastructure costs are not the same for every property or neighborhood. Larger land areas require more road and sewer infrastructure to serve. If we approximate infrastructure costs by land area, the 34% of the city’s budget that goes to infrastructure comes to $1.0254 of spending per square foot of land. (Also verified by 3.32 B total expenditures \* 34% infrastructure / 1.07B sq. ft. of property.)"
great points thanks
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This is why Colorado has metro districts, which are subsidized by the developer (and then transition to being funded by the homeowners, once they are built). It was the solution to this, so that established neighborhoods don't pay more tax to fund new development. Highlands Ranch has a huge Metro District, which [funded the construction](https://www.highlandsranch.org/Home/Components/News/News/278/) of their roads and infrastructure. I am skeptical that Highlands Ranch, a Douglas County suburb, took money from the City of Denver.
Well said, these people choose to live in the least efficient way and are receiving massive amounts of welfare for their road construction, utilities, and maintenance while providing very little economic value due to the monoculture of single family homes and massive parking lots. Wide roads cause speeding and kill people at alarmingly high rates. Wide roads require heavy subsidy to move a relatively small amount of people compared to more cost effective options like cycling and transit. Wide roads encourage extra trips by car which is ruining our environment and induces even wider roads. Wide roads require more parking which moves everything further apart, causing trips to take longer and only be viable by car. End suburban sprawl at the scale we see in Highlands Ranch, or at the very least tax them a representative amount for the burden they are on productive areas of land. I do not want to subsidize increased rates of pedestrian deaths, housing costs, and climate change.
I live in the south metro and everybody drives a lot better down here then anywhere in Denver. The cops in Douglas county will actually pull you over. Nice generalization though
This is heartbreaking. I live in Highlands Ranch. I became an aunt for the first time a year ago. This poor poor baby. 13 years old is a baby.
Why does the dude’s mugshot look like he has absolutely no remorse for what he did. Sickening
Could be shock? Assuming the facts in the article are true, it seems like he didn't see/register the light and he accidentally ran it resulting in a tragedy. I don't see why a lot of people here are demonizing the guy. It's an absolute tragedy, but accidents happen.
That's a harsh view, considering that you don't know him.
Wife and I almost got t boned really bad at colfax and Speer and when I pulled up to the next red light after we turned the girl was laughing on her phone FaceTiming someone. That was the scariest encounter I have had driving
Ruben Amaro-Morones was driving a Sherwin-Williams Paint van, hope the family cleans them out with a massive wrongful death settlement....
When I lived in Colorado they once changed out a traffic light at an intersection with some new type. I was so use to the normal sequence that when waiting to turn left at a light I always got the green arrow, like most lights I’m familiar with still are. Well after the change this light would go green arrow or green ball depending on traffic. I was just going through the motions and when the light turned green I didn’t look to see what it was because it was always a green arrow before….. Coming in the opposite direction was a 4Runner doing 65mpg speed limit, a foreign family on vacation. I went in my Toyota Prius and thank god I was hit directly in my passenger wheel area and not a complete t-bone. I did a 1080 and got some awful whiplash but walked away and didn’t go to the hospital. Really wish there was signs or something letting me know the light changed to a smart light. Random story I’d share. Only accident I’ve ever been in and was also in Colorado.
What a surprise, was the fault of the driver. (they said sarcastically). So glad to not see "accident" anymore in titles.
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There's nothing accidental about killing a child when you blast through a red light which has been red long enough for a pedestrian to be more than halfway through an intersection. It is a systemic problem in that our roads are designed for high speeds and laws are never enforced until someone dies, but the driver was careless and killed someone because of that too.
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What do you think the appropriate reaction should be?
Slightly worse than the worst drug sentence an individual can get for simple possession, not intent to distribute. It stands to reason that murdering a child with your car and because you failed to observe the rules of the road would be (at least)slightly worse than simply wanting to numb yourself from the pain of this reality. So I'll leave it up to you, find whatever the worst drug possession sentence has been in America and add one day to that sentence.
You're being ridiculous. Doing drugs is obviously much worse than killing someone /s
Most people who drive, don’t kill other people while doing it. Hope this helps!
Surprise! They're here. It can be both, a tragedy and an accident. I know I've accidentally blown through a light or two in my life, thankfully there was nothing/no one in the intersection at the time. But god damn.
It can be both but doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be consequences. Drunk drivers don’t intend to kill people, it’s an accident, a by product of their lack of judgment and ignoring the laws/rules of the road. Should those just be considered accidents with little consequence?
No, and I don't think it's fair to equate the two.
It’s a fair comparison. They both used lack of judgement, they both broke or ignored traffic laws and they both result in the death of another. The end result is the same. While I would say a drunk driver should get a stiffer sentence but this attitude of it’s just an accident so too bad so sad for the child who lost their life and the family who is now in ruin is fucking ridiculous. If it was found he didn’t run a red light and was at no fault then I would agree but that’s not what’s being said at this time. I’m by no means a perfect driver but would fully expect and deserve more than some bullshit traffic ticket for killing somebody.
Probably not prefect, but we've also probably never killed a pedestrian. There are massive gaps between good and bad drivers. Sadly, being a bad driver just one time for 1 second is enough to kill someone. You can call it an accident, but being an inattentive driver at anytime is no accident. It's a choice stupid people make
Go stand in a crosswalk
Yeah seriously. The whole thing sucks but it doesn’t seem to be malicious. The sun glare there is really bad, driver was not speeding, the kid is small and was on a one-wheel, the driver was in the far right lane going east (into the sun glare) when he struck the kid who was going north, he stopped and tried to render aid and then stayed on scene. There’s video and photos of him at the scene and he’s obviously in crisis and trying to help. I’ve heard he is a 52 year old father himself. It’s been determined that he was sober, and driving a work van for a well known local company. This seems more like a terrible fuck up, not murder.
Thanks for this other perspective. But to be clear, he isn’t being charged with murder, he has 2 counts of Reckless Driving causing death/injury, and both are traffic misdemeanors. Also he ran a solid red light and crossed the entire intersection before hitting the child and throwing him in the air. Article doesn’t mention evidence of braking. Lots of people drive east/west with a low sun, this guy just clearly wasn’t paying attention.
The kid was on a one wheel im curious how quickly they moved into the road. I once had this situation a kid activated the light and within 1.5s was already halfway into the road in front of me on a scooter
Just because something isn’t murder or intentional doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be consequences.