Weaponized SUV Injures Three in Homewood
After the attack. From KDKA.
On February 1st, a fight started outside a bar at the corner of Frankstown Avenue and Oakwood Street in Homewood. Following the fight, one person got into their SUV and used it to ram three people, severely injuring two of them.
This is unfortunately a trend that has been increasing in recent years. The Detroit Free Press conducted an investigation that showed that SUVs and pickup trucks, some of the best-selling cars in America, are more dangerous for pedestrians than smaller cars. As more SUVs are bought, more pedestrians are killed or severely injured.
But it’s not just that bigger vehicles cause more damage: more people are intentionally turning their SUVs into weapons. Since the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, VA, where counter-protester Heather Heyer was run over and killed by a white supremacist, vehicle ramming attacks have been on the rise, often associated with the far right. Following the unprecedented waves of protest following the murder of George Floyd, conservative state governments in several states have actually reduced or eliminated penalties for hitting protestors with vehicles. Some terrible people who won’t get links to their websites from me started selling t-shirts depicting SUVs running over protestors. Vehicle ramming attacks have become common enough that Wikipedia has a list article for them.
Local leaders have taken steps to protect people from these kinds of attacks. For instance, after the 2017 truck attack in New York, then-mayor Bill DeBlasio planned to install 1,500 steel street barriers. But while this makes sense for certain high-value targets, it’s not reasonable to install barriers and bollards on every sidewalk in a city. Just like in other crash situations, speed reduction equals risk reduction. That’s why Israel’s Homeland Security, in addition to barriers and bollards, recommends “tight bends and restricted-width streets” so that potential attackers can’t gain enough speed to cause significant damage.
Frankstown Avenue and Oakwood Street are both owned by the City of Pittsburgh and administered by the Department of Mobility and Infrastructure, or DOMI, who currently are taking traffic calming requests through 311. For political support, please contact Councilperson Reverend Ricky Burgess here, and Mayor Ed Gainey here.
2/24/2023 Update: a previous version of this post said that Frankstown Avenue and Oakwood Street are owned by PennDOT District 11. This was due to a misunderstanding of state-provided GIS information: they are in fact non-state federal aid roads.