Montclair Pedestrian Hit By Car

Note to self: stay the heck off of Gordonhurst today.

Note to self: drive carefully EVERYWHERE

Thank G-d for Rich Murnick!

[comment deleted]

Hans: Don't hold back now.

Hans, in my house that would get your mouth washed out with soap.

I drove down Gordonhurst around that time last night - no cell phone, no hamburger, no kids, no foul language - and the snow was very slippery. I was going slower than anyone on the road, in my SUV, and still my anti-lock brakes kicked in as I skidded at a stop sign.
I'm surprised there weren't more incidents last night. The conditions were right for fender benders (and pedestrian benders, I guess).

anyone know what happened at valley road and bellevue today at around 4:00? there were police and a car was stopped in the middle of the street, but i don't know anything else.

Hansi is just full of good will towards men above.

Hans may be crude but he is absolutely spot on: stand at the intersection of bellevue and valley any morning and watch the pigmobile SUVs running lights, with pedestrians in the crosswalk, drivers typically on cellphones, steering with one hand, oblivious to the danger they present to anyone daring to cross the street. they deserve all the profanity directed at them.

Watchung, I could not have said it better! You are spot on!
8 outta 10 cars I see have yakkers on the phone. In today's traffic, you need 100% attention and concentration on driving. Talking on a phone & driving should be banned, with a $100 fine. What is so damn wrong with pulling over for 3 to 5 minutes to make a call?
SUVs are the reason that I will never buy a small car. Screw saving gas, I wanna save my life when that Cadillac Escalade XL cruises through that red light and T bones me.

Yep. Another SUV, another accident where it ends up on its side. They are not impenetrable forces, people. Drive more carefully than if you were in a car.

.."SUVs are the reason that I will never buy a small car. Screw saving gas, I wanna save my life when that Cadillac Escalade XL cruises through that red light and T bones me."...
Sandy, the way to save your life is to drive defensively and be on guard for the 4-foot tall soccermom with a cell phone in one hand and a starbucks in the other..

I feel bad when anyone is hurt never mind a loss of life, but seriously, if it's dusk or later or stormy and the vehicle has the headlights on, it's the pedestrians fault...period.
For some reason people think a driver can see them and slow down or stop; don't walk in the street if the driver has to slow down not to hit you when it's not daylight, and even then be sure you have their attention before you commit. You don't need more light, you need common sense.

'Ya, catinthe hat, today they've got CDs, MP3 players and Navigation systems in the dash, together with some Navi system you can play games on, read maps and 20 other things, then there is the restaurant department, featuring several cup holders,ash trays and ipods to connect and more coming every year. Everything to divert your attention to driving.
The one I like the best is in the Volvo S-80 Premier Elite,
Their Best model.
You fold down the rear seat armrest & in back of it is a Fridge! At 41 degrees, it holds 2 wine bottles, 2 six packs of soda or beer and in the rear package shelf there is built in a velvet lined container with 4 Swedish cut crystal stemware drinking glasses. So, now you can have a cold bud (actually 6) right in the car. This however might mess up your navigation game!

I don't know what's going on lately, but I've seen a much greater incidence of pedestrians getting struck by automobiles in the past year. In my practice, after having 3 pedestrian cases over the course of about four years, I've had 5 come in in the past six months.

Either I'm getting more popular with the pedestrian crowd or people are driving more and more like savages. Heck, my assistant and I watched a fender-bender right in front of my office yesterday where the person at fault was on the cell phone and not paying attention. Automobile? Big lake! Sheesh!

Wow, someone actually said something deemed offensive enough to merit deletion. The mind reels at what it must have been.

It was childish profanity laced "rant" devoid of any real content. Pretty par for the course for Hans.

Wow, now baristanet is now censoring comments? Way to go, baristanet! I knew you had it in you.

My comment was valid, if littered with profanity. My liberal use of profanity was for "shock value" and it appears to have worked.

So yeah, slow the [portion of comment deleted] down and pay attention when you are driving. Get off your damn cell phones and stop mowing down pedestrians who decided to walk their fat asses from point A to point B instead of driving the quarter mile to the store.

9th grade behavior is hardly "shocking" hans. Nor of much interest or redeeming value.

Hansi, you confuse potty-mouthedness as a form of charmless self-boasting with "shock value." and if I really want shock value for the sake of shock value, I can always play my old Redd Foxx and Belle Barth records. (Which are a heck of a lot funnier than anything you'll ever come up with, anyway.)

Can I add a request for people to clear their car or SUV of snow before they drive? It is illegal and you can get a ticket. Even after yesterdays light snowfall the amount of cars on the road shedding snow as they drove was ridiculous. Last winter there were some igloos on the roads. I'm still wondering about the one woman who had a van piled full of kids and gave herself all of 6 inches of cleared off windshield, was she lazy or just stupid?

Uh, funnier? Cathar, you think Hans was trying to be funny?

For someone who boasts such a strong command of our language, your reading comprehension sure failed this time around.

I'm with you, hrhppg. If you are too lazy to clean off your car, you shouldn't be driving it. Particularly the big SUVs. If it's too much work to clean off the top, get a smaller car.

Why yes, IT_Guy, I quite imagine hansi thought he was being witty. Cutting, even.

But he also seemingly imagined that he couldn't get his point across without resorting to plenty of "dirty words." So he was also being quite condescending to the likes of you, in his own special, lovable way.

That you didn't catch that proves nothing. Save, maybe, that you need to work on your own reading comprehension skills. May I suggest the collected works of lasermikey, to be found on this very website, as a way to start? (Plenty of, uh, "shock value" of a certain kind there, too.)

So you said the "f" word Big 'effin deal. So original in its scope, so enlightening. You give all those 8th grade boys a run for their money.

Too many people getting hit by cars....

"May I suggest the collected works of lasermikey..."

I asked for that for Christmas.

"...devoid of any real content."

Really? I disagree with this perspective. If my little rant did not result in the responses you see above then how could it be devoid of content?

Many people agree with what I said, and ignored the fact that it was full of the f-word. Those who chose to focus on the profanity and not the message are the ones who seem to want to stifle free speech and complain to the B-Queens that "old hansi" is having a swearing fit again. Oh no, cover your ears! Hide the children! Hansi is forcing me to see a different perspective! Gah! Make the bad man go away!

Mrs M, sounds like a good stocking stuffer.

Mrs. Martta, that was beautifully put!

Hansi, you're beginning to sound like a tagger who spraypaints his gang affiliation in letters 6 feet high on subway walls. Insecure, and very stentorian in his obvious insecurity. Clearly prone to unearned preening, too.

But none of your curiously self-centered ranting qualifies, despite whatPaul Simon used to call this sort of thing, as bona fide "prophecy."

Oh, Cathar, I see you're turning on your charm again. You know how that makes me weak in the knees for you. My offer of the two of us in an entwined evening before a cozy fireplace still stands. I can look past your latest lapse in reading comprehension. We all know you still have the biggest and sexiest vocabulary of anyone in Baristaville. Rawr, big boy, rawr! Swoon.

"a different perspective" ? Really Hans? Do you smoke to look grown up too?

Even jerks usually reach mental and emotional adulthood. We can only hope and pray in your case, Hans.

perhaps, the baristanet article just below this one would be of interest, Hans.

Weak in the knees, maybe, IT_Guy. Weak in intellect, surely. "Rawr" back, sweetums!

(But did you know that lasermikey is also an IT sort of fellow? Have you considered getting together with him by an open fire and exchanging crudely phrased pleasantries? I'm sure he's more your type than I'll ever be.)

Silly boys.

Everything importsnt we learned, we learned back in grade school, jerseygurl. But at least the good Benedictine sisters taught me that using profanity for "shock value" was a one-way ticket to being hung on a cloakroom hook for an hour or two. And then 3 years in the Army showed me that there were wise lifers who'd already forgotten more "dirty words" than I'll ever know, and would always use them far, far more creatively than the rest of us.

Wow, so easy to push your buttons. It gets old after a while but sheesh, so easy!

Be that as it may, hansi, I note that your post remains deleted. Even as you still attempt to justify it way too long after the fact of its posting.

Cathar was raised by nuns? That explains a lot....

Poor cathar, it's almost enough to make me feel pity for him. It takes a lot of therapy to undo the brainwashing.

I was not "raised" by nuns, hansi. I was attended to by them in grade school. There's a difference.

Who "raised" you to call attention to yourself for "shock value?" Your parents? Or the pack of blubbering delinquents with limited vocabularies you may have turned to instead for training in the ways of reasoned argument?

Anyway, in the Freakonomics of unintended consequences, people might have been emboldened to assert their pedestrian rights from the recent police campaign (they have to stop, don't they?). Unfortunately it didn't teach the pedestrian a thing. Which is not to say driving habits don't need improvement, paying attention to the main task at hand being number one on the list. Even with this known failing, people step in front of an on coming car thinking that driver is as aware of them as they are of the car.
A kid chasing the proverbial ball is one thing; a grown adult smart enough to get around without an aid is another. Then again those same adults smart enough to afford living in Mtc. also will throw their car door right in front of oncoming traffic. I think there's a lot of "me first" in the equation also.

I love how those nuns taught you to insult first, then debate with reasoning later. Awesome. Way to go nuns! You've warped another fine mind for life!

My original post is more than justified. I can only guess that B-Queens bent under pressure from some low-minded mouth breathers to remove my post because they couldn't see my post for what it was. Certainly, it was full of profanity, but it was full of profanity for a reason. It got the attention of several people who agreed with my perspective. Had I left the profanity out, then the post would not have been as effective.

It's a simple tactic that does not always work, but in this case it did. Too bad the self-proclaimed highbrows here with their pocket thesauri are too dumb to see past the profanity.

Ah well, I can't expect much from people taught by nuns.

My teen looked over my shoulder yesterday when I was reading Hansmeier's deleted post, and he said:

"Wow, there seems to be alot of ANGRY dudes on that site"..

Yes, .. there are many angry dudes here. I find myself avoiding reading this blog more often lately for that reason.

I'm trying to think up a good term for internet blog combat.

Hmmnnnn...

Blogging + fighting = Blighting.

Yes, catinthehat, I am ANGRY!

I am ANGRY because too many assholes think they can drive anywhere they want, as fast as they want, without looking for pedestrians, while talking on their god-damned [portion of comment deleted] cell phones and eating their McDonald's hamburgers.

I am ANGRY because I have almost been run over several times by these me-first assholes who do not obey stop signs and think a pedestrian crosswalk is just some dumb painted lines in the road.

I am ANGRY because these morons do NOT PAY ATTENTION when driving, and could care less that their SUVs hog the road, intimidate pedestrians and cyclists and pollute the air.

I am ANGRY because there are still no stop signs at some of the most dangerous pedestrian intersections in Montclair. How many people have to get mowed down by [portion of comment deleted] retarded drivers before people start paying attention?

It makes me sick. It makes me ANGRY!

that will be $150 please.

And there's nothing worse than an angry stupid idiot, right hans?
Perhaps you still have an old CRT monitor and could use it as a mirror.

I am angry that people are constantly on their cell phones - get over yourselves, get some therapy, you do not need constant stimulation
I am angry that there seem to be soooo many worthless thugs locally - didn't your mama teach you better?
I am angry about so many yoga places and chai tea outlets - it's the embodiement of what I dislike about Montclair these days
I am angry that the economy is crumbling around us and I didn't do anything to add to that, but yet, I am screwed from it
I am angry about the super high taxes and the nothing for it
I am angry about all the freakin potholes
I am angry that no one assumes that the pedestrians walked out in front of cars and it was their fault and they made the poor person who hit them feel horrible - hey, maybe
I am angry because stupid people assume 4 wheel drive will help them on ice

I am thankful for Buddy burgers and cold beer at Tierney's
I am thankful that I love this season and we are getting snow for my dog to eat
I am thankful that I like sushi
I am thankful that I have an SUV and not a Prius
I am thankful for my dog
I am thankful that santa will be coming to my house and bring good shit

I love it how I make valid posts with actual points of view and then every idiot on this site piles on, trying to outwit each other, ignoring my valid points and instead focusing on the tactics I use to get my points across.

Whatever, if y'all just want watered-down rhetoric and big-vocabulary posts from the nunnery then go ahead and continue with your current line of debate. Pile it on!

Too bad the B-Queens can't see past their own noses and recognize dissent and alternate perspective for what it is.

The fatuous as "dissent".

You are a piece of work Hans.

More like dissent-ary.

Actually, after all this, I have to say that I agree with Hans' points...but it's going to take alot more than rage to change the world..the Yoga lifestyle (see above) is supposedly helping that idea along, but, unfortunately Western Yoga is not in keeping with the original intent: inner peace.

hans booby, if you can't see where you're going wrong it does lead one to wonder.

Have your posts kept the thread on topic?

Could it be your message is lost in the delivery?

Could the "shock" factor be lost in repetition?

Have you considered the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result?

I like that hansi has added a dollop of religious bigotry to his urgent need for self-expression today.

Serenity now, hansi, serenity now.

MellonBrush, I'd humbly suggest the word you're seeking might be "Blombastry." A combination of blogging, combat and bombast!

Franliscio - it was another pedestrian hit yesterday around 4pm. My boss witnessed it. A man crossing Bellevue Ave. So sad. This is happening way too often!

I am thankful for Buddy burgers and cold beer at Tierney's
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Me, too!!!