The Question

I’ve been struck by the way in which the coverage of the bus crash that seriously injured a teenager last Friday as she crossed the street with the legal right of way exposes a core philosophy of traffic violence apologists. This philosophy has mostly played out in Pete Donohue’s coverage in the Daily News, but it’s a common point of view anytime an incident like this becomes the subject of debate: Death and serious injury, it seems, are the cost of doing business in the big city.

J.P. Patafio of TWU Local 100 said, “The law of averages has it we’re going to get into an accident.” Donohue, arguing on Twitter, has essentially said the same thing. The occasional bus crash in which a pedestrian is maimed or killed is just an accident and not a crime, and not something that should concern the law in any meaningful way beyond…