Looking at the well-worn path on the side of the street (stroad) where this incident occurred, it’s clear that the two victims here are not the first ones to attempt to cross at this intersection. When we say that engineers shouldn’t design streets, that our capital investment approach should begin with a humble observation of where people struggle, this is what we’re talking about. This isn’t difficult but, in most cases, we’re not even trying.

While the police were the villain in the Kansas City story, they are the hero in many others. Too often, we ask police officers to compensate for dangerous design with traffic enforcement. And this is dangerous itself. Along with domestic disturbances, routine traffic stops are the most dangerous type of incident police officers undertake. Many are killed on stroads each year, randomly struck by passing cars while doing things no more complicated than writing a speeding citation. It’s a tragic irony.

Then, this week, another tragedy, as reported by ABC News:

An off-duty sheriff’s detective was struck and killed by a car while she was in the middle of helping an elderly woman cross the street who had fallen in the middle of the road. Amber Joy Leist, a 41-year-old mother of two sons aged 17 and 20 and a 12-year veteran of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, had stopped her car in Valley Village, California, on Sunday morning at around 11 a.m. when she saw an elderly woman fall while she was crossing the street. Leist parked her car near the intersection of Riverside Drive and Whitsett Avenue to help the fallen woman but was struck by an oncoming vehicle when she attempted to return to her car. Leist was immediately taken to a nearby hospital but was pronounced dead shortly thereafter.

An act of kindness as tender as it is human—helping a struggling elderly woman cross the street—ends with yet another death, another person needlessly run down in service of a system whose values are as ruthless as they are opaque.