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
For some reason its normal this lady can drive. Yep, sure thing, we’d help you open a door for worry of your frailty but you can totally chuck an 8 ton hunk of metal down the road.
Holy shit, a blind old lady driving a giant SUV kills a pedestrian and keeps driving…
Americans: “Yeah, that’s normal.”
Getting killed by a granny that didn’t even notice the fact that she killed you and drove away home all jolly is some horror movie material.
And if you suggest we should add public transit so that 82 year olds have a reasonable option other than driving, everyone acts like you’re ableist as if people whose disabilities make driving more dangerous don’t exist at all.
The problem with public transportation in the US is that black people will use it. That means the old white lady is going to fight paying for it and then take her own car anyway.
This is the answer.
I live in a conservative area and I’ve literally gotten political fliers in the mail from two different republican local campaigns bickering over who’s the most against public transportation.
One of them said “So-and-so would fund a new bus station that would allow those people from the city to come to our town!”
The other one’s response was basically “Whats-his-face is a liar! So-and-so only suggested funding and renovation of an existing bus station which doesn’t have a route to the city. It wouldn’t bring those people from the city here at all!”
To me, reading that just felt like the entire county’s racism on full display…
Um what??? What in the classist world did i read???
Describing other people’s classism is not itself classist.
Also the statement was more about racism than class, anyway
There are those who would downplay the difference, but that’s a discussion for a different community. (In general, at least. The effects of environmental racism on transportation/land use/urbanism specifically would be on-topic, however.)
You’re not wrong.
Yup, and in many states it’s legal for blind people to own guns.
When I hear of people like this driver, it reminds me of the quote from Coming to America: “Imagine a country so free one can throw glass in its streets.” It’s meant as a joke in the movie, but for me, it’s actually a really great way to describe our concept of freedom.
At least blind gun owners won’t shoot based on skin colour.
I saw a commercial where a blind veteran used those Meta spy glasses everybody hates to ask where the flag was so he could salute it.
So, “Hey Meta, where is the intruder?”
That’s such a wild mental image, I could imagine it in a movie
See No Evil, Hear No Evil had a bit like that.
Hero name: Deadeyes
Why shouldn’t blind people be allowed to own guns. Transferable machine guns have been a way better investment than bonds for essentially their entire legal existence. There are plenty of legitimate reasons blind people should be allowed to own guns.
Guns shouldn’t be investments either
Ironically, the guns the other commenter is talking about became investments because the ban on them restricted the supply.
<moderator hat on>
But that’s getting off-topic, so if anybody reading this wishes to discuss guns further please start a thread in a different community.
No there aren’t, lmfao
Are you implying we need to be more ableist against the visually impaired?
Blindness is a spectrum not just a binary can see and can’t see.
There need to be tests to determine if somebody is fit to own a gun or operate a vehicle. Part of that test needs to be about visual and mental aquity. Your mind and sight needn’t be perfect, but at some point you are crossing too much into “you can’t be trusted with other peoples safety if you are allowed to operate this instrument of death” and that is where a line needs to be drawn.
There is nothing ableist about that, it’s a common sense safety measure for the people around you.
Well, you’re allowed to own a car even if you aren’t allowed to drive it. Maybe for guns there should also be separate rules for ownership and operation?
I mean, ideally, I’d be for no private ownership of firearms at all - that just makes for a safer society.
I mean yes… that’s what a collectors permit is… Viewed in that light…
But I agree, ideally, private gun ownership should be AT LEAST heavily regulated.
Woke 1 is dead, no I don’t want blind people to own guns, Jesus christ.
You should really educate yourself on what it means to be legally blind.
If a legally blind Person is not allowed to own a driver’s license why should they be able to own a gun?
Being allowed to own a thing is different from being allowed to use it in public. A blind person shouldn’t be allowed to drive or carry a gun, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they shouldn’t be allowed to display them in their home as art or something like that.
Arguing with Americans about guns is futile. It’s too ingrained in their culture, they grow up with it drilled into them.
Not drilled, shot
I’m well aware. I don’t want legally blind people to own guns, lol.
She belongs in congress.
She reminds me of that one american politicians who murdered a person by driving her car into then in Europe, didnt notice it, and then left europe when charges were brought against her lol.
Sounds like Anne Sacoolas, who forgot which side of the road to drive on in the UK, killed someone, and then got spirited away to live life consequence free: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Harry_Dunn
But the US has a proud tradition of such. Only last month they whisked someone to safety in the US rather than have them arrested for kiddy porn: https://nypost.com/2026/09/13/world-news/us-diplomat-extracted-from-london-after-feds-allegedly-discover-child-porn/
AH thanks! That her!
one sad thing is that, as american vehicles go, a 2013 Edge is not very offensive. sure, it’s not a Corolla, but it’s not a full size
it’s a CUV with inoffensive tech. not too big, not too heavy, not too blinding or distracting. not that that saved the victim…
Yeah, I was looking to see what type of street-legal APV allowed her to run over a full adult skater without noticing, but I guess this one was just decent suspension and zero awareness left in her bones.
My own grandfather is a danger on the road. He’s slowly losing his faculties, which is always tragic but doubly so because this was a deep intellectual. But trying to convince him that it’s really time to stop driving has been… a challenge, shall we say. There’s really only so much you can do in a legal sense.
Show him this article!
Maybe someone should ‘lose his keys’ for him 😘
Aye , you might be saving his life and the life of like 5 other people on the road 🤷🏿♂️
In America, you get at least on free kill with your vehicle. Age is rather irrelevant except she waited longer than others to claim her’s.
You’re supposed to be tested when you renew your license, but the renewal period is anywhere from four to twenty-five years, with some places even longer. If you are not renewing your license they neeed an incident to reevaluate your ability to drive.
On the one hand it’s good that they have less control over locing down the ability of people to move around, especially since we have almost no rail lines, horrible public transit, and roads that are dangerous to bike or walk on.
On the other… You have to hurt someone, or damage something, in order to be told “Okay, grandpa, time to hang up the keys.”
We allow it for the very fact that without a vehicle an 80 year old person is essentially being given a death sentence in most cities in our country.
I am all for requirements of driver’s license test be met past a certain age. But, we need to acknowledge that it’s not just that. Seniors need alternative methods of transportation. They are driving because that’s all they can do.
Whether this is basic public transportation or major expansion of senior specific door to door transport systems. We can’t just “ban them”. Because then the problem will just be a bunch of seniors just driving without a license or dying alone in their home because they didn’t get their medication that day.
Even an 80 your old person who can’t have food and drugs delivered still does not need to drive a 4000lbs SUV. There are much safer alternatives. We can quite reasonably just “ban them” from driving unnecessarily dangerous vehicles.
If old people are going to be allowed to drive it should have to be smart cars or something, that way if they’re going to fuck around it will be them smeared 200m across the highway, not innocent victims
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 51… there is a reason for this…
Never allow your ego to betray your understanding of humanity and your understanding of your biology.
Since several years ago, Japan requires people of a certain age (75 IIRC) to take special classes to continue driving. I think there may be some other tests, but less sure on that. In the deep countryside, there isn’t always another option at any reasonable cost (especially to pensioners), which can create problems
I dont know how car-centric Japanese infrastructure is so I dont know how easy or difficult it is for a Japanse senior to walk or bike to where they gotta go if they dont have a car or licensing to operate a car , since its expiered, in a urban or rural setting.
I feel that had humanity completely banned car centric infrastructure in all parts of the planet that dont need them then a Japenese senior who had to bike, say, 5 or so KM just to get something they need would not worry about the journey at all. Heck the person in our story here ↑ would probably also still be alive since he didnt have to worry about how to conduct such a journey safely.
Like are there bike only , pedestrian only , or even shared bike and pedestrian only cross-city paths in Japan? Also how good is the inter and intra city transportation in Japan? If there were , it would completely resolve the scenario you just talked about. … It would resolve A LOT of the problems we have around land based transportation today too.
First, that SUV is 2 ton. That’s an easy search. You’re approaching semi-truck territory here.
Second, and I’m not siding with her as it could be false, what would you expect someone to do if they returned to a potential collision site and found nothing?
Semis, unloaded, are like five tons, minimum. I guess two tons is approaching, but then so is my sedan at like 3,400 pounds.
And as fully loaded tractor trailer is like 30 or 40 tons.
I believe cars are getting too big though.
That hypothetical would be much more convincing if it had anything to do with the actual facts of the real event that took place.
Yes, hindsight is 20/20. Unfortunately, I can’t see into the future and neither could she.
… The… Future…? What about the present? Like, seeing things on the road as you’re driving?
There’s no need to be sarcastic; I want you to be more persuasive because I completely agree with you that it is unreasonable to expect private citizens to be able to do things like: notice a full-grown man in rollerblades on the side of a highway, or notice you have collided with a rollerblader, or safely overtake a rollerblader, or notice that the rollerblader is no longer visible and is instead dying on the side of the road. People can’t do this if they are 32 or 82 – there is too much going on with their phones and their infotainment panels and the complex road conditions. You just gotta say it with your whole chest: no-one can reasonably be expected to safely operated a motor vehicle.
which is why FuckCars
If public transit were more common hit and runs like these would be far less common. Cause even if a 32 YO or oldrr person were operating such a vehicle public transport buses pick up on when youre moving too fast and they warn you, AND they probahly send a report bck to your boss, AND they have wider fields of vision cause of their bigger glass screeens so you can see more before you ever get to hit someone, AND because theyre bigger and girthier they tend to accelerate slower so pedestrians can see and interpret what dangerous moves these viehicles are about to make better.