Map: Where Buffalo Drivers Smash Into Buildings (Hint: Everywhere)
Cynthia Van Ness, a librarian and host of BuffaloResearch.com, put together the above map, showing the nearly 150 sites where drivers crashed into buildings in the Buffalo region and made the news since 2006.
The map includes links to the media coverage of the incidents, and Van Ness points out how reporters and editors tend to implicitly forgive the drivers involved in these crashes:
Let others fume about “jaywalking.” This is a map of “jaydriving.” About 150 crash sites marked! Each placemark has a link to a news story. Note how often the car is blamed instead of the driver.
A September 2010 incident where “a van crashed into a senior citizen’s apartment complex” was referred to by WGRZ as a “minor accident.” The article notes that the driver was an “older man,” that “alcohol was not a factor” and that “no one was injured.” No harm, no foul, apparently, since no one had the misfortune of standing in his way!
In all likelihood, the map captures only a fraction of all the vehicular bricks-and-mortar mayhem in the region, since it relies on news coverage, not comprehensive public records.
Van Ness calls Buffalo “the world capital of drivers crashing into buildings,” but this seems to be a common occurrence all over America.
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