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San Mateo County has achieved the rare distinction of being both deeply alarmed and completely unchanged.
Bad News
There is no FIFA award for Political Theater. I wish there were.
Good News
Our local politicians try to sound artful; the deception is still obvious. Anyone can spot it if they want to. The pattern becomes clearer when we compare what is said versus what is done.
Spotting Deception (quick example)
Reporter: “Police say the driver of a sedan hit pedestrians in front of shops and a restaurant.“
A second source: “Investigators say: a driver struck someone on a bike, then hit two young children on a sidewalk before crashing into the restaurant.“
Straightforward reporting makes the driver the subject of the sentence, then shifts the focus to the actions (verbs: struck, hit, crashed). There are also objects or recipients of those actions. Taking everything together, it becomes clear that reckless driving harmed several children and a restaurant.
One news outlet even has a local reporter on scene. She has more details: “What police say is that a driver was backing up in the parking lot. And in the course of backing up, somehow backed into a bicycle with kids on it. And then that driver, police says, accelerated, plowing into a restaurant.“
The local reporter adds a few more details (6:30 pm, dinner rush, area was busy) and interviews with witnesses and Police Chief Raj Vaswani.
This kind of reporting invokes trust in local news.
The ‘Chain Reaction’ bit started
A third news station picked up the story as well: “Police say the driver of a Mazda SUV jumped the curb, striking two little kids on the sidewalk before crashing into the restaurant.” However, in that case, a police officer added the words ‘chain reaction‘ to the report. A ‘chain reaction’ in transportation occurs when the driver of one car pushes another into a third, which then hits a fourth, and so on. This scenario is quite common in any kind of stopped traffic. Large highway pileups usually start with ‘chain reactions’ caused by several people driving too fast and not paying attention.
Long story short, there was no ‘chain reaction‘. And even if there was a chain reaction, the person who tips the first domino in a Rube Goldberg Machine still starts the process. All actions started with the driver; she struck, she hit, she crashed.
The Next Morning
By the next morning, some coverage repeated the phrase ‘chain reaction‘, making it sound as if a 100lbs child on a bicycle could push a 4,000lbs vehicle into a restaurant. Someone put a lot of effort into misinforming with this headline: “A young boy is dead after a chain-reaction crash caused by an e-bike rider and a sedan driver, Burlingame police said Saturday.” [SFGATE]
The wording in that sentence makes it sound as if an ‘e-bike rider’ caused the tragedy. The dangerously fast, heavy SUV was downgraded to a simple sedan, and an 11-year-old on a toy bike was made to look like a member of the Sons of Anarchy.
This kind of reporting fosters mistrust in local news.
Burlingame Officials Latched On
Burlingame officials, various news outlets, and the usual suspects on social media went out of their way to blame anyone but the driver:
- Social media also blamed the parents for letting their child be on the sidewalk, where pedestrians are supposed to be safe.
- Social media focused on the children on e-bikes.
- Biased reporters were adopting the ‘blame kids on e-bikes’ policy as well.
- Serious media and real advocates called out the hit-piece journalism and local politicians.
- A Burlingame councilwoman and former Mayor also blamed the kid on a bicycle.
- The District Attorney refused to charge the guilty driver.
(DA is an elected position in San Mateo County, and a DA can take ‘donations’ from automobile and fossil fuel lobbyists.)
… and in this context, it is important not to forget that driving features all Seven Deadly Sins and is paid for with Sinner’s Tax, while bicycling is not. San Mateo Democrats love to spend more taxes locally.
What Dishonest Reporting looks like
Many police reports leave out important details about the driver. Was it a car with a large center display? Was it an automatic? Was there a cell phone in the car, or a coffee mug, maybe a burger and fries? All of these are known reasons for distraction and for many crashes these days.
Dishonest reporting, on the other hand, will focus on the victims. Were they wearing helmets? Were they wearing clown gear? Were the kids playing supervised? Dishonest reporting adds sentences like “pedestrian crossed outside a marked crosswalk“, but never asks the question why that crosswalk wasn’t “marked” or “controlled” in the first place.
Bike helmets do not cause crashes. A pedestrian still has the right-of-way at unmarked crosswalks. No solid traffic reporter would ever claim that a more brightly dressed person or restaurant would have prevented this crash. It is not the job of a restaurant or any person walking or biking “to be seen“. The “what were you wearing” discussion has been recognized in other violent settings also as victim-blaming.
Political Theater is Always about Distraction
Rape isn’t about sex – it’s about power. Collisions aren’t about vision – they are about speed.
Donna Colson (she/her), Jackie Speier (she/her), and Diane Papan (she/her) know that. It’s written in their own city, county, and statewide plans. They have been sitting through hours of lectures by professionals, advocacy groups, and public commenters. They praised those slideshows, nodded their heads in agreement, and signed off on the plans … and then forgot to follow through. Adovates have predicted this, as these women never built the bike infrastructure they promised. And the crash pointed the finger at them. They needed a distraction so urgently that they were willing to blame an 11-year-old. People have argued that female leaders bring more empathy. The kids are still waiting.
What’s Been Said versus What’s Been Done?
“[The death] draws attention to the fact this is a crisis, and it is incumbent on us to do something serious about it,” [Supervisor Jackie Speier]
“Frankly, the e-bikers, they won’t yield, they won’t stop, and I just have to say, I have to speak out for elderly seniors, little children, and people with dogs.” [Councilwoman Donna Colson]
“Our county really has a prevalence of these devices. People are getting injured. We’ve had a couple deaths.” [CA Assemblymember Diane Papan]
We did not have any deaths caused by a child on an e-bike in this county, not one. People driving cars, on the other hand, cause thousands of fatalities and serious injuries every year in this county. For many years, a leading cause of death for kids and teenagers (1-19) has been cars. The data clearly shows that drivers are the ones doing the killing. Papan, Speier, and Colson are drivers and sinners themselves. And very typical for drivers and sinners seems to be that they want kids off our streets completely. And they never want to provide the safe alternatives that would get the kids away from cars, either.
Why all the Political Theater?
As mentioned earlier, political theater is about practicing the art of distraction. What are the real issues in this case?
CalMatters just won silver for its outstanding investigative series License To Kill, which is “exposing how officials across government – DMV leaders, judges, elected officials, prosecutors, police and court clerks – routinely allowed dangerous drivers to operate in California.“
We have such a case with the 19-year-old driver in Burlingame. The police never published the driver’s name, which means she was never properly processed or medically examined. The driver might have conditions that could result in her losing her driving privileges under DMV rules. Other evidence was never mentioned, probably never examined; we never heard if there was a passenger, a cell phone, a large display, food, or drinks in the car – all known items that can distract a driver.
DA Wagstaffe and his staff refused to prosecute; The city never apologized, never explained why a known danger spot was never fixed. It requires parents to go through a civil trial to at least get some justice.
No Justice and No Apologies often lead to Civil Lawsuits
“They decided not to hold anyone accountable. So, civil litigation, unfortunately, is the only path for achieving any measure of justice. The only path to enforce those responsible to take accountability.” [Ayden Fang’s parents]
The parking lot exit was known to be a dangerous spot. The civil lawsuit even mentions that a councilwoman and former Mayor was told several times that this needs to change. She never acted on it. Those descriptions in the lawsuit would only fit Donna Colson or Emily Beach. The Las Vegas money line is on Donna Colson, exactly because she went against all available information and blamed the child on an e-bike instead.
Burlingame is facing Millions in Damages
Because of that non-action by their former Mayor, Burlingame will be paying millions. Meanwhile, there has been absolutely no effort at the local level to avoid similar lawsuits by proactively and professionally improving safety; on the contrary. Just three recent examples:
- Redwood City – the county seat – has been defying the Grand Jury for almost a decade now. And they did it again with their Jefferson Avenue project.
- Burlingame council members refused to install any bike lanes near schools and a hospital, even though a person was killed there just weeks earlier.
- San Mateo city council members even schemed to remove bike lanes from a low-income neighborhood with lots of traffic safety issues.
- San Mateo County has seen numerous incidents in which children on e-bikes have been victims of reckless drivers.
Just last week, another father and two children were hit in a crosswalk in North Central. It sounds like Deputy Mayor Nicole Fernandez (who represents this neighborhood and is heavily involved in the attempted pilfering of safe bicycle infrastructure) has so far refused to comment. Why do San Mateo Democrats always need fatalities and protesting advocates before they do what they promised to do already?
We have seen the same concerning behavior with Donna Colson (representing city government), Jackie Speier (representing county government), and Diane Papan/Josh Becker/Marc Berman (representing state government). If County Democrats had joined other counties in calling for more accountability and promising more action, we surely would have heard about it.
“That’s some weak shit” [Flea about the song “You Oughta Know“, then he helped fix it]
… to be continued.
Editor’s Note: The views and opinions expressed in this blog post are those of one author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Redwood City Pulse or its staff.
