Two Pedestrians Struck By Cars Within Minutes Of Each Other In South, North Austin

SOUTH AUSTIN, TX — Two pedestrians were seriously hurt in separate incidents happening almost simultaneously late Saturday, emergency officials said.

Austin-Travis County EMS officials were called to both incidents at around 10:20 p.m. on Saturday. One incident occurred along the 100 block of East Ben White Boulevard while the second occurred just three minutes later along the 800 block of Rutland Drive at the intersection with North Lamar Boulevard, EMS officials said.

The victim of the first collision, a woman in her 40s, was rushed to St. David's South Austin Medical Center for treatment of critical injuries.

The victim of the second incident, a woman in her 50s, was transported to University Medical Center Brackenridge with potentially life-threatening injuries, EMS officials said.

In the local EMS nomenclature, such incidents are given the dry treatment of "Auto v Ped," one of many shorthand communication emergency officials use to alert of incidents via their Twitter account. Not a weeks seems to pass in Austin without reports of pedestrians being it by cars on Austin streets.

Often, such incidents lead to fatalities. The issue hasn't been addressed formally, but piecemeal explanations by officials at times attribute darkened streets, the incidences of higher traffic on the road in the fast-growing city or impairment — on the part, alternatively, of pedestrians and motorists — that has a lively entertainment scene billing itself as the "live music capital of the world."

Just two days before this Saturdays double incidents, another pedestrian was struck by a car and killed. The victim, a woman in her 30s, was pronounced dead at the scene after being struck in the 4300 block of Westbank Drive.

#ATXTraffic Fataility: #ATCEMSMedics onscene of Auto v Ped @ 4300blk of Westbank Dr (22:11); DOS pronouncement obtained on ~30's Female

— ATCEMS (@ATCEMS) December" class="redactor-linkify-object">https://twitter.com/ATCEMS/sta... 24, 2016

Last year, a record 102 people died on Austin roads, many of those pedestrians struck by vehicles. The victims ran the gamut — from a man killed in the early morning hours by a motorist who later fled to a bicyclist hit by a truck on Brodie Lane last December.

But, again, the issue of pedestrian deaths hasn't been formally taken on as a public safety issue. Instead, city officials introduced the ultimately voter-passed bond package totaling $720 million intended, in part, to finance road improvements, bike lanes, sidewalks and urban trails with the issuance of public debt.

Concern or critiques of public debt issues often trump worries over mounting pedestrian deaths. For example, Vision Zero ATX, an Austin-based road safety group, declared its neutraility on the bond rather than expound on the potentially life-saving aspects of its implementation that is at the core of its mission.

"At this time, we believe there is not enough information to fully understand the collective traffic safety impact of these project proposals, although we can anticipate some of the impacts of individual projects which are included," Vision Zero ATX officials said in the days leading up to the bond's package. "If the plans incorporate best practices in regard to safety and safe mobility when implemented, some of these projects could have a real positive impact; if not, they could lead to the same types of high-speed, auto-centric, sprawl-inducing infrastructure that have made Austin’s traffic so dangerous in the first place."

Still, Vision Zero ATX officials did offer some measure of endorsement in terms of addressing road fatalities as part of the justification for the huge bond package: "Regardless of the outcome of this bond election, Austin needs to spend significant resources on changing our road infrastructure if we are serious about achieving zero deaths on our roadways," officials wrote.

This map illustrates the scene of the first collision between a pedestrian and vehicle occurring in South Austin this past Saturday:

The second incident, meanwhile, took place at the opposite side of town in North Austin:

>>> Image via Shutterstock