Late Saturday night, a 19-year-old driving a Chevy Cruze at more than double the posted speed limit (25 mph) and so heavily under the influence of heroin that he was reportedly passed out when police arrived, struck and killed a 21-year-old female on E. 9th Street downtown.
The fact that the woman was riding an electric scooter should have been incidental. But it has become the central talking point in the tragedy’s aftermath.
See how other cities have regulated the influx of electric scooters, Cleveland.com invited its online readers in one headline. “What are the dangers of electric scooters,” asked another. Its Tweet announcing live coverage of the incident was rightfully greeted with consternation and open hostility.
The scooters are hot news, and other outlets have likewise made the victim’s mode of transportation central to their coverage. In WCPN’s brief news account Monday morning, host Amy Eddings spent much of the story recapping the recent introduction of Bird scooters to Cleveland streets. In the final line, she noted that the driver of the vehicle (that is, the car) Saturday night was thought to be under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
Reporters have been careful to mention that the city of Cleveland isn’t even sure if the scooter was a Bird. Despite the “scooter craze,” the model that the woman was riding was identified as an “Icon G” electric model and was rented from Ray’s Scooter and Bike Rental downtown, known for its Scoot-E bikes. Cleveland.com, which dutifully sought comment from the California-based Bird regardless, noted that “the woman killed Saturday is the first reported death on an electric kick scooter.”
Reporters did not, evidently, seek comment from Chevrolet, Budweiser, MADD or even ODOT about traffic fatalities involving drunk or high drivers. We know, on a related noted, that distracted driving was responsible for 3,450 deaths nationwide in 2016, and caused more than 14,000 crashes just in Ohio last year.
Cleveland.com reporter Adam Ferrise posted a story Monday noting that the 19-year-old driver, Scott McHugh, had snorted heroin in a grocery store parking lot shortly before the crash.
The victim’s mode of transit should have been immaterial. She was struck by an intoxicated, underage driver and ejected onto the pavement. She would have been subject to a similar fate if she’d been on a bicycle or roller blades. She was taken to MetroHealth and pronounced dead after 10 p.m. The county medical examiner later identified her as Jenasia Summers, of Cleveland. The 19-year-old McHugh was taken to county jail and booked for aggravated vehicular homicide.
One of the more annoying consequences of the crash — which is a tragedy in about 14 different ways — is that downtown Councilman Kerry McCormack had just met with Bird and other city officials last week to negotiate a temporary agreement whereby the dockless electric scooters can stay. The city initially sent a letter suggesting that the scooters could not be placed on sidewalks without permits and would be impounded if not removed.
Due to the irresponsible media coverage, which has implied that the scooter itself was responsible for Saturday’s crash, local officials and the public will now be overly concerned about the wrong issue.
Imagine how tone-deaf and irresponsible Cleveland.com would rightfully seem if, in the wake of a violent sexual assault, it sent a reporter to the scene of the crime and asked, absent all other context, if short skirts were cause for concern.
This article appears in Aug 15-21, 2018.
🙂
That’s the liberal politics. might as well ban all cars because cars actually hitting into people and killing them in the thousands annually
Type English or GTFO.
Cleveland,
You have a heroin problem. Get help and get off the shit.
Then you can have your scooters back.
The heroin epidemic rages through your communities taking innocent lives with it. Everyday another unsolved shooting. And your elected leaders are meeting with a scooter app.
Scooters, and such things as heroin, guns, and bad relationships are the real problem as they allow the user/participant to engage danger carelessly, and throw caution to the wind flatulantly. Suicide by any other name would result in death…so…
All I took from this article is that a fancy Northwestern grad doesn’t know the grammatically correct use of “more” (incorrectly used twice) and “most” (not used when it should have been).
Clespree, “more”was used correctly, “most” would mean that it was number 1 of the annoyance’s. “More” mean’s it’s not number 1 but close to #1 out of many annoyance’s.
Mom, you are insinuating that the scooter user was high on heroin which was and is not the case
Fucking idiots don’t read – first of all. Secondly, it’s not the “liberal” press, you fucktard. It’s CAPITALISM – plain and simple. When will the fucking idiotic masses EVER realize that EVERYTHING is a commodity?
PD has no fucking incentive to write an honest story. Scooters are hot – they sell more, well, whatever they sell now, with a scooter story. Nobody wants to hear more about heroin.
So fuck all of you ignorant motherfuckers – learn how to read and understand and consider for ONCE that capitalism is FUCKING UP OUR WORLD!
Patricio you dumbass motherfucker, look at what the fuck you wrote:
“Scooters, and such things as heroin, guns, and bad relationships are the real problem”
REALLY? Scooters and heroin are the problem? Are you a citizen? Do you know how to read and interpret English? Go back and read the story you fucking retard!
I swear, the stupidity of the general public is staggering. You all fucking graduated from high school? HAHAHA What a joke.