Beware Autonomous Astro Vans

This five-sentence NY1 article is a bit too late for April Fools' Day, and sadly enough it actually does seem to be a serious journalistic effort.

Witnesses tell NY1 a Chevy Astro van was trying to avoid traffic when it drove up on the sidewalk before hitting the pedestrian.

I truly don't know which sentence to highlight (its title is bad, too), as they're all pretty equally horrible, at least in context.  But the above should do, for starters.  Take eight seconds to read the whole thing, and then take another few minutes to admire its truly taking idiocy to an art form.

I drove a Dodge Caravan for work for nine years, and as far as I can recall it never took the wheel away from me, in 'trying to avoid traffic,' before proceeding to drive into people on the sidewalk.  Must be a New York thing, maybe.

Who knows?

Oh wait, I do.  I know.  Motor vehicles do not actually drive up onto the sidewalk, and into people, of their own volition.  Not even motor vehicles in New York.  There is a person responsible for this collision (not 'accident'), and that person needs to be charged and prosecuted, and at the very least they need to have their privilege to operate heavy machinery in public taken away.

Unless the driver's name was "A. Chevy Astro Van" (one of those German relatives of Clark W. Griswold, maybe?), this article is an incredible fail.

~~~

In somewhat related news.

Now here's a SEPTA bus ad I can get behind.  As seen on a 48 bus at Penn's Landing yesterday.

Of course, up here in Kensington, one of the very same bus lines which run between here and Penn's Landing (the 5) has a 'bus stop' (at least there's a bench, and not just a sign on the sidewalk) along its route (at Frankford & Susquehanna) which met a driver to whom 'thank yous' are not forthcoming.

How not to drive past (or through?) a bus stop.