Blame 9 Year Old Kid for Traffic Engineer's and Motorist's Negligence?

[XLFD]

HOLLAND TOWNSHIP, Mich. (WOOD) - A 9-year-old boy is in critical condition after police said a vehicle hit him along an Ottawa County road Tuesday night.

Rescue personnel were dispatched about 8:32 p.m. to Riley Street and 128th Avenue in Holland Township.

Phillip Curtis of Holland Township was driving west and went through the intersection with a green light, police said.

Andy Thammavongsa of Holland Township was hit when police said he ran north onto Riley Street.

A medical helicopter took the boy to a hospital

http://www.woodtv.com/dpp/news/local/ottawa_county/car-pedestrian-c...

Here is that intersection looking north, courtesy of Google Maps, where the kid would have ran and where he got hit by a car moving west (the same way the vehicle in the picture is going).  This looks like a standard 'dumb kid crosses against a light and gets hit' but let's look at a couple of points.

 

1)  There is no pedestrian lights corresponding with the stoplights. 

2)  Riley street is a 5 lane highway with good visibility, a west going vehicle should be able to see a pedestrian entering the roadway from the field to the south, and have plenty of time to react to a child going into the roadway and crossing over three lanes of traffic, even if the light is green.

3)  Just because you have a green light, does not mean you have right of way, carte blanche, when someone, in this case a young boy, enters the roadway.  Legally, you do have a responsibility to avoid a collision.

4)  Riley is a more of a main street that the other, making it more likely not to have a lot of time for red lights. 

 

We can say that foolish boy crossed on a green, but what if he didn't?  What if he waited for the cars on 128th St. turn in front of him onto eastbound Riley, and ran out when the light on Riley was red.  It takes seconds to cross over three lanes of traffic, even when 'running', and the westbound car should have seen him in time to react.  In this case the victim would have been blameless, but as it is, the victim is not only exclusively blamed but the contributing factors of the lack of pedestrian crossing lights and the possibility of a motorist not paying due attention to the roadway is not pointed out. 

So why do we continue to blame those who had no input into how the roadway should be engineered or never had the chance to get behind a steering wheel, without at least investigating the situation further?