SALINE COUNTY, Kan. (KWCH/Gray News) — A Norwegian man attempting to rollerblade across the U.S. was killed in a hit-and-run in Kansas, officials said.
The Saline County Sheriff’s Office identified the man as 24-year-old Joachim Lanham.
Lanham was documenting his rollerblading journey across the U.S. on Instagram. According to a post from his family, he was hit by an SUV on day 22 of his journey from New York to Los Angeles
“An 82-year-old female said she had been driving a 2013 Ford Edge SUV going west on Country Club Road. She stated that she thought she hit something, turned around to check the area, but didn’t see anything, so she continued her journey home.”
As someone that once accidentally hit a cat whilst driving an SUV, I cannot fathom how anyone could hit anything as large a human and be unsure if something was struck.
Home girl probably has presbyopia so real she just rolls up on Mr. Magoo and mic drops. Couple this with people constantly being distracted while driving, age related cognitive decline, along with age related muscle/coordination loss, and I can absolutely fathom it.
A decade ago, my mother who must have been in her 50s showed up at home with a traffic cone lodged in her rear driverside wheelwell, having no idea it was there.
I think the key words are “82-year-old”
I’m not nearly that old, but I can extrapolate my own experiences from 16 to now and out to her age, and I can buy it.
Understandable, and I accept everyone’s situation and capabilities are different. I’m nearly in my sixties, so I’m closer to her age, but I’d seriously reevaluate the wisdom of driving if my faculties were that degraded.
Seems like you are lacking experience in driving while being high as a kite.
Old people lie like anyone else.
This is horrible… but also somehow even more sad that I would have totally expected this. Trying to go cross country on rollerblades in the US is akin to entering a warzone with a target on your back. This country is not friendly to non-car commuters. I live in a dense suburb with some bikelanes and its bad enough, so I cannot imagine what its like in places with huge stroads and highways running through town. You can barely cross a street let alone travel on rollerblades or bikes…
Same. I’m fortunate that there are a ton of residential roads I can use to get where I’m going, and in the main city corridor there are bike lanes protected (mostly) by curbs, but I’ve had dozens of cars just stray into my bike lane when pulling out of McDonald’s or trying to cross a main road, and culturally, I’m well aware that it’s on me to make sure I’m the on ensuring my safety and not the asshole behind the two-ton death machine.
Play stupid games. Win stupid prizes. Atleast he won’t pass on his stupid genes.
Stupid comment by a stupid loser.
Typical American, refuses to blame infrastructure even when it’s killing people. Instead it’s stupid to try and exist outside without a car.
Atleast he won’t pass on his stupid genes.
we can only hope the same for you, too.
Had nothing at all to do with an 82 year old driving an SUV. Nope, blame the guy doing a version of what many people have done successfully.
What a pure-hearted dream, crushed by the worst country in the world. Of course it would happen in Kansas.
Forest Gump was a lie :/
Maybe if we had decent public transport, we could take away elderly licenses without restricting their freedom.
I drive through Saline county regularly. A decent chunk of their tax revenue comes from erroneous traffic tickets. I don’t think Salina has A bus, not to mention about 10% of the population is rural, as it sounds like this woman was.
“An 82-year-old female said she had been driving a 2013 Ford Edge SUV going west on Country Club Road. She stated that she thought she hit something, turned around to check the area, but didn’t see anything, so she continued her journey home.”
Well at least she was nice and safe in her rolling fortress.
I hate everything about this story, fuck car culture so much
And thank god we don’t ever test people again after giving them access to killing machines
The thing about cars is that they are a lethal weapon INSIDE AND OUTSIDE. .
So obviously outside you have this mostly iron thing that weighs over a tonne or more and it can easily reach speeds of over 250 km/hr if the deranged driver wants it to…
But If someone alters their car so that you cant get outside once theyve locked you inside… You better hope that theyve put you in the trunk cause thats the only place with the emergency opening. Also whst if theu alter the trunk to make it so that only they can open it?..
Also I was reading this one comment from a police shooting a couple yesrs ago aand it changed how I see the lethality of cars from the inside. And it basically said: “The main perpetrator was shot and killed by police but a person who was kidnapped inside the car were ALSO shot and killed by those police officers. But something that the news story conveniently omits about the officers’ response is that the car was travelling at insane speeds for most of the chase …So how could the kidnapped people inside the car escape if they couldnt jump out? They didnt deserve to also be shot as they had no route out of the car.”
At least she turned herself in. I’m not sure I would’ve had enough courage and selfrespect to do that.
I hope she feels like shit and sees consequences for making a half-assed attempt at identifying what she hit. She could at least get out of the vehicle ffs. He might have been able to be saved.
Slim chances of her seeing real consequences. The easiest way to get away with murder in the US is to do it with a car.
You are saying the planned to run him over. How do you back that up?
I agree that she made a terrible mistake. She should have to pay restitution to the family, get jail time and probably never drive again. But murder is a whole different thing. You might as well charge her with genocide.
The person you replied to made 2 true and disconnected statements.
One was that she’s unlikely to face consequences.
The other was that the easiest way to get away with murder is to do it with a car.
They never said she killed that man intentionally. They said she’s unlikely to face consequences. This can be verified by knowing how little punishment people receive in the US for hitting people with cars AND knowing how little punishment happens when someone who’s a senior citizen does it. Here’s an article about an elderly women who killed a family of 4 and got probation for example (Honestly an infuriatingly depressing read).
The second statement is about how killing someone with a car basically means (at least in the US) you’re likely to face very little consequence vs a murder charge.
Calling a Ford Edge a “rolling fortress” is a bit of a stretch
It sure feels like it when it’s wooshing past you at highway speed on a bicycle.
most modern SUVs are. particularly compared to any bike.
Calling it a pollution powered people crusher is a pretty accurate assessment tho.
82 YEAR OLD? I think my grandpa died at around that age, they’re letting this person drive?
It’s Kansas. If she can’t drive she literally cannot leave her home…
But I’m sure there are taxis in Kansas.
Tennessee city of 40k here. No taxi service for the last decade, and no uber drivers unless you get really lucky.
There’s a city van that will take elderly people around town. It requires three business days notice, the pickup time is an hour window, shopping trips are limited to three bags, and it’s not free.
in rural areas it’s pretty hard, but some small towns have basically on demand dial a ride type of services for the elderly, but still people really resist losing their freedom on that.
82-year-old
FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK
I’ve read horror stories told by acquaintances from Japan about old people there driving and usually finding themselves crashing into things, crashing into cars, cyclists, pedestrians, or worse. There’s been talk among Japanese about setting limits to drivers older than 60 or 70.
When you keep playing the odds
The amount of misplaced courage thst a person from the ages of 16-30 has would shock even the gods themselves.
Poor kid though. R.I.P. he picked the super wrong country to attempt this in.
Guess they picked the wrong country to rollerblade in /s
Or even visit
As someone who travels on two wheels in the US all the time, they kinda did.
‘kinda did’ in one of thr most car-centric countries on the planet?
I saw a video of a skateboarder who skates across the states the other day and all I could think is how surprised I was that he didn’t get hit/killed. Though in his montage he did get clipped
There was a Spanish actor who biked from Spain to Rome as part of some doc and he got hit pretty badly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvojIfdmSR8
In France, obviously.
FUCK CARS…especially fuck that this asshole won’t suffer anything worse than a slap on the wrist for KILLING someone.
…i don’t give a fuck if she’s 82, that just means she shouldn’t have been driving in the first place.
In Murica? How the hell is she going to the pharmacy 5km away to buy her 500$ prescription? Take the non-existing public transit?
Everything gets delivered in today’s gig economy. If you can’t tell if you’ve hit a full grown man while driving - trade your car in and take an uber to your appointments.
Ngl that’s what door dashing should be used for, not for lazy people to order a 5 dollar burger for 20 dollars
Getting controlled medications delivered is complicated
Well then maybe we should haave specialized pharmacists who’s only job is to study about each of the controlled medications, store them as they are meant to be stored, and deliver them to people who can be a danger when operating a vehicle.
Im gonna keep it 💯with you , you are able and within your right to think that it doesnt matter that she’s 82 .
But in my opinion I already know there’s gonnabe some landmark study or studies thst comes out that proves thst people at or around the ages of 70-75+ should not be driving at all since people of this age tend to lack coordination , reaction time, and awareness of many of the driving related events happening around them.
I wish I had compiled it but something Ive noticed is that in hit-and-run stories is thst you will find a disturbingly common trend of seeing that a very old senior ‘hit something or someone’ , ‘never noticed it was there before’, ‘and kept on going cause they thought it was nothing’ .
There comes an age when you just have to accept thst youre just too old to do some things. Not a single paid athlete in basketball anywhere in the world has been able to stay io that profession past the age of 50… there is a reason for this…
Never allow your ego to betray your understanding of humanity and your understanding of biology.
I have known plenty of 90 year olds who could drive fine, this woman hadn’t been physically tested for probably 20 years.
Regular testing should be mandatory for all ages IMO.
I agree with Germany, fuck me, right…
On the other hand, isn’t an 82 year old hurtling around in 2 tons of metal with only a vague idea of what’s happening outside that box… normal?
Why single out this woman, when there are millions just like her who are only different in that thus far, by sheer luck, they haven’t happened to kill anyone? This one won the murder lottery, millions more bought a ticket.
I would like to welcome you to America, where everything is made up and the points don’t matter. I wish this was funny
I’m assuming you don’t drive, and hopefully you never do.
I think you’re missing the point here. The individual is not the issue. The fact that any 82 year old is hurtling around in 2 tons of metal oblivious to the world outside is the issue (or at least part of it). Do you think this woman is some kind of exceptional case?
My gradfather drove far into his 90s, and only stopped when he became deaf. Never hurt anyone or did anything unsafe. The obliviousness really depends on the person.
I do favor frequent testing for older drivers, though. When things go wrong, it can happen suddenly and people are often in denial about their continuing fitness to drive.
My grandfather also drove into his 90s and had no accidents. However, he had macular degeneration and struggled to see. The DMV knew he couldn’t see well and still granted him extension after extension. We had to sit him down and talk him into giving up the car because the DMV would’ve let him keep going until somebody got hurt.
Frequent testing for the elderly would definitely save lives.
I agree totally about the testing. Old people often drive until an accident or near miss demonstrates their inability to continue. When you live in a world where driving is a necessity, of course people will push themselves to do it until they reach a point of failure.
I’ve been yelling it into the void since the 90s - Mandatory Annual Testing After Sixty-Five. And not the book test. Get in a car and drive with a human who can gauge your ability and mark any decline.
I’d like to see that and also re-testing maybe every 5 or 10 years for young and middle-aged drivers. Both book and practical, because people forget the finer points of the rules and also sometimes new ones get made (e.g. new NACTO recommendations for cycling infrastructure).
Ofc its a fucking hit and run too like what the fuck. We remember people out here being like “ban cars? You don’t mean outright right? Haha” no we mean it, we hate cars, ban them we hate them so fucking much dude. Yeah there’s a time or place for them but there needs to be proper safe routes for pedestrians and bikers and cars need to be straight up banned in certain areas.
Ps: all our thoughts and care to the family, really sorry for your son. He was doing what he loved.
Cars need to be considered second class transport on the road, especially in urban areas.
Part of the reason surface transit sucks so much here in Toronto is that for some retarded reason they make it so LRTs have to wait for cars to pass at intersections, where it slows them down so much people can reach their destination quicker if they run.
Yeah in reality, pedestrians > bike’s/other small personal riders > public transit > small commercial riders (think mail couriers/small delivery) > mopeds/bikes (with heavily enforced legal noise and pollution limits) > cars (with heavily enforced noise and pollution limits) and most if not all residential streets: cars are not allowed or are maxed at 10km/h.
But in our heart, no cars at all thanks 💖 bring us trams, trains bikes and walking parks babyyyy
A train or a bus transports way more people than walking or biking and has less ability to stop.
Train>bus>commercial trucks>bicycles>ebikes>pedestrians> motorcycles>LSVs>>>>cars
Ah mb got the pedestrian mixed up, though bikes should watch out for pedestrians in mid use and pedestrians should watch out for bikes in mix lanes/bike lanes. Though commercial trucks should be in same place as normal cars imo (but sowed in mixed use areas only at certain times like early morning/night)
Trucks have less ability to stop and emit a ton of pollution when they need to accelerate again, its in everyone’s best interest that they are not obstructed.
True, but big trucks don’t need to be in city centers or in areas that are pedestrianized in the first place. They should be completely separate specifically for that reason yeah?
Are fewer commercial vehicles that only enter pedestrianized areas at low times good? Sure. But that may not be realistic, depending on the size and logistical needs of the pedestrianized zone. When there are commercial trucks in the city, they need priority so they can get out as unobtrusivly as possible.
Yeah it takes a legend to go on an adventure like that.
Vila i frid broder.
Of course an suv. People and their big vehicles thinking they’re untouchable and in their private house with no one looking in.
Also, visibility is worse.
He would probably have been safer doing this in Afghanistan.
I heard of a dude who cycled from Ukraine to Nepal and the only thing that happened to him was that he was kidnapped by taliban (they released him when they realised he’s broke) no other major accidents
Say what you will about the taliban, but at least they have a ethos. American motorists? Nothin’!
Oh no… media addicted narcissist kills himself for upvotes by doing something dangerous and ill advised? What? Again? I’m shocked!
(HUGE condolences to his loved ones. Seriously — this is a tragedy. I don’t blame cars. I blame this system that rewards narcissism plus risk. No thanks. I’m out. Again — if you are a grieving family member seeing this, I am so sorry for your loss.)
doing something dangerous and ill advised
using public roads in the US
“Media addicted narcissist” it’s just a guy who liked roller blading
What in the victim blaming bullshit are you on about?
The villains here, in order of culpability are:
The old lady who kept driving years or decades after she really should have turned in the keys
The political class that continues to enshrine motornormativity and treat all methods of transport other than ecocidal narcissism as less-than.
The culture of the US, created by carbrained assholes
Absolutely not in any way the person killed by the assholes listed above for trying to do something fun and interesting.
Gets hit by a 80+ year old in an SUV, and you’re equating it to “kills himself” - what a braindead take.
We let 82 year olds drive
We let humans drive a mass greater than they could physically keep from rolling down a slight incline at speeds faster than they can see, around other vulnerable human beings, just because they want to. No need to bring ageism into this. That’s just a way of assuring yourself you are a safe driver, that this couldn’t happen to you. You’re not and it could. No one is a safe driver.
We force them to drive. So long as we have a car-dependent infrastructure and few if any affordable alternatives, you’re advocating for elderly people to require family or money to be able to navigate the world around them, which is not really a great stance to take.
That does not require this situation to be the case of required driving, but a rule which prohibits elderly people from driving means that we have to anticipate how it will effect people that could not get around otherwise; disabled people deal with this all the time, and they’re pretty much abandoned.
It’s sad, but yeah they and their families need to suffer the consequences of car centric hell, taking away the licenses of people too old to notice they killed someone, and start taking meaningful action to remedy this situation. Unfortunately no one will change a thing of they don’t face consequences.
I think it is a very Lemmy response to say, “well yeah, but it’s more reasonable to punish innocent people who have few or no options so that people feel bad enough to fix things.”
As I said, disabled people are still often disqualified from driving, there are physical requirements for driving that disqualifies many elderly people. Guess what happens to people who don’t have family to support them.
You’re from Canada? This is from thirteen fucking years ago: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/for-seniors-losing-driver-s-licence-like-having-arm-cut-off-1.1346585
Is it fixed?
Oh, and before you act like that isn’t relevant: https://www.kslegislature.gov/li_2024/b2023_24/statute/008_000_0000_chapter/008_002_0000_article/008_002_0047_section/008_002_0047_k/
“The one who is always the most surprised is the one whose needs were met.”
I think you’re strawmanning a bit with that “punishment talk” and treating things like they are mutually exclusive when they are not.
I literally just read an old lady (article about upcoming municipal elections) commenting that the city went too far with bike lanes and bus stops. Society keeps catering to old people drivers, who in turn vote against better alternatives; fucking/running us all over.
Sure, could you explain how you read, “Unfortunately no one will change a thing of [sic] they don’t face consequences,” in response to “we should be considerate of the material needs of people before we ban them from driving,” as anything other than a punishment?
I also like, don’t care about what an old lady in your city said…? That doesnt change the fact that there’s a 100% chance that a ban on elderly drivers would lead to deaths and hardship of innocent people in a system that abandons them otherwise and requires access to a car to even exist in? Are you seriously suggesting that it is reasonable to do that to make sure these nasty ladies don’t drive?
Canadians are so brutal dude.
We have restricted licences in Australia, where through their GP reporting changes in circumstances or failure to pass an aged driving tests they can have a limited radius / areas they are allowed to drive (say supermarket, close relatives, gp, activities).
It does put a bit of a rock and a hard place for some folks, but it’s a much better option than having no licence.
The fitness to drive test scheme is well executed, is not required to be held at a service centre (via trained 3rd parties) and let’s most maintain their mobility.
In the US, they have golf carts, some communities plan for them, even giving thrm special roads, but they’re often banned on higher speed roads, which you need to get anywhere. Here in vietnam, 82 year olds mostly ride 49cc scooters.
