SUV Overturned Near W-L High School

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by ARLnow.com September 30, 2011 at 9:35 am 3,700 47 Comments

(Updated at 10:00 a.m.) A two-vehicle accident has resulted in an SUV flipping on its side near Washington-Lee High School.

The accident happened at the intersection of Washington Boulevard and Quincy Street. Two people were transported to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

This is the second vehicle to flip on its side near Washington-Lee in as many days.

drax

The summer of daily bank robberies has been replaced by the autumn of daily car rollovers.
- Burger
  
  beat me to it.
- Aaron
  
  +1 million
  - Lauren
    
    HA. I had the same thought.
DarkHeart

It’s only going to get worse as we head into peak rut.
- Zoning Victim
  
  Haha, I wonder how many people got that.
Tre

This is getting flipping ridiculous
ARLrez

Really? Really? I mean, really?
UnlimitedCustoms

…But the county redesigned that intersection to make it safer (and make everyone on Quincy wait longer too!)

Surely the artificial congestion created by the county has nothing to do with these accidents…
- charlie
  
  yep. after 40 years of working. Mr. Wentz shows up and thinks he knows better and screws up this intersection. Now people are jumping the light, cutting each other off and taking at least one cycle to get thru.
  OH and he also screwed up Lee Hwy/Quincy in Cherrydale with the stupid markings.
  Why is it that we hire staff who think they know everything and that what we have been doing for 40 years is all wrong and they change everything and makes it WORSE????
  And it isn’t about “pedestirans” because the pedestrian buttons never fricking work anyways. so don’t give me that BS party-line.
  Can we start firing people when they are arrogant S.O.B.’s who think they know everything?
  - madisonmanor
    
    Just got back from a week in California just north of San Francisco – we could learn a few things from them in terms of how we do cars, bikes and pedestrians (actually, out there the order is pedestrians and cars/bikes).
    
    First, at every crosswalk, there is a clearly labeled button that you push in order to get the walk light to cross whichever way you want to go. We never had to wait more than 20 *SECONDS* to cross any road, and we walked quite a bit. Since all pedestrians know this, I also didn’t see ANY jaywalking – why bother when you can push a button and not have to wait.
    
    This only works because the drivers know that the light can change on them in an instant, and it forces them to drive both a little more slowly and defensively. That, and the fact that a single red-light violation (not stopping when a pedestrian causes a light to change) results in a fine of ~$450. Harsh, but fair considering the possible alternatives. . .
    
    Remarkably, bikes are allowed and encouraged ON THE ROAD (the bike path had signs warning bikers/pedestrians that cars had the right of way at intersections and didn’t have to stop – unless they had a red light, of course). So bikers and cars peacefully co-existed on the road – probably because the drivers were already looking out for pedestrians. But the bikers actually followed the rules of the road – mostly stayed in their lane, stopped at the lights – didn’t turn right on red without stopping. Didn’t see a single Lance wanna-be. Didn’t see a single Mario Andretti wanna-be, either except on the highway where both pedestrians and bikes aren’t allowed.
    
    And I saw fewer police cars out there than I do here, which means that PEOPLE DO THIS VOLUNTARILY. What a novel concept. They also don’t barrel down residential roads, either, unlike the folks in my area who do it while on their way to pick up kids at McKinley.
    
    The only problem was the idiots on motorcycles who apparently don’t understand the concept of lanes. I didn’t see a single one who DIDN’T pass between two side-by-side vehicles by gunning it between the two down the dotted white line or the left-hand or right-hand median. I guess you can’t have everything, but if it works there, why can’t they get it to work at least partly better here?
    - Lou
      
      People are just much more mellow out there. If you were just north of San Francisco, you were right in the heart of the mellow growing zone.
    - CW
      
      Long post, short response:
      
      -I agree with you.
      
      -Red-light running should be made a more serious offense and enforced. Red-light running is no less dangerous than DUI.
      
      -I think the D.C. area in general needs more dedicated walk signals. I.e. walking when NO cars are moving. This helps everyone. No pedestrians getting run over. And no traffic getting backed up for blocks because the pedestrians are preventing traffic from turning. See pennsylvania ave and 19th.
    - Zoning Victim
      
      Yeah, it’s amazing how easy it is to get people to follow sensible laws, and CW is right about taking red light running more seriously, except that I believe running red lights is actually more dangerous than most people who drive under the influence. I’d love to see a study on that. We already know that the vast majority of people who drive under the influence are able to do so without incident. I wonder what the ratio is for red light runners.
      
      Believe it or not, motorcycles are actually legally allowed to split lanes in CA.
      - madisonmanor
        
        Thanks, Victim – I did not know that about motorcycles in CA (this was my first trip). Does that still include passing on the left and right breakdown lanes or just along the dotted passing lines? I saw both.
        
        Given that they are fairly pedestrian/bike friendly, it surprises me that they would allow such dangerous behavior. Motorcyclists have it hard enough without being encouraged to make it even more difficult and dangerous. . .
  - Cherrydale
    
    RE: Lee/Hwy and Quincy – This intersection was confusing but traffic flowed well. Now the new left turn lines are confusing and suggest a flow that does not work. Even worse, traffic backs up several blocks on Quincy in the morning meaning it takes 2-4 cycles to get through. Absolutely awful. And all done without community feedback.
    - UnlimitedCustoms
      
      While the markings for left turns are new, the lane configurations were changed over a year ago.
      
      I called Arlington and they didn’t seem to care. They claimed it was to make the intersection “safer” and other than that, didn’t care that it had caused a once functioning intersection for those on Quincy to wait..and…wait…and..wait.
      - John
        
        I don’t follow the new markings, and most locals don’t.
- drax
  
  Wow, you get more desperate every day, UC.
John DeCarlo

I think gravity is warped around W-L now that school is back in session.
stanley

Here’s a thought. Given that this is right next to a school, and given that a pedestrian got killed in a traffic incident here… maybe just maybe we could have a little police presence once in a while, ticketing those who fail to yield and are speeding and violate traffic laws in other way. Oh yeah. This is arlington. We dont enforce traffic laws.
- charlie
  
  that would be nice.
  last night in Rosslyn I was crossing a street (with the light) and this car was speeding down the street and I told my friend, wait, I don’t think that car is stopping. As fast as it came down the street is as fast as it stopped. And while it did stop behind the stop line and then rolled into the intersection it was a very threatening vehicle to use pedestrians on a darkish street in Rosslyn.
  Imagine my shock when it was an Arlington Police Cruiser… which we saw again parked in front of a store a few blocks away and the officer getting out to go in and get some general merchandise.
  police need to buy in to the urban village car free concept too.
  - CW
    
    Bad driving by police?? No way!! He was probably in a hurry to stock up on “general merchandise” before his night shift at DARPA.
  - Zoning Victim
    
    Just a couple of days ago I had an officer pass me as I pulled up to the light at Columbia Pike and Walter Reed on the way to Rt. 50. He/she passed me as we approached the light in the right turn-only lane crossing the solid white line to pull back in front of me to go straight. Then he/she sat there and read their laptop for a few seconds after the light turned green instead of paying attention to what they were doing, and then proceeded to drive away from me through the residential 25 mph zone even though I was doing about 28. I caught up at the lights at 2nd and 50, where he/she was still reading the laptop crossing the double yellow line several times between 2nd and 50 since he/she didn’t bother to stop reading the laptop so they could drive right. Once we hit 50, off the officer took off again at well over the posted 45 mph speed limit. I was doing 50, some of the other cars were pulling away from me, and he/she was pulling away from them. Then the cruiser exited onto Courthouse Rd. If the police find it okay to drive in the wrong lanes, cut people off, drive on the wrong side of the double yellow line while distracted by their laptop and speed when they’re late to work, it stands to reason that they wouldn’t bother ticketing other people for the same behavior.
    - Lou
      
      You should have called 911 and reported their license plate.
- PoPo
  
  Actually, this is the intersection where the DUI checkpoint was last weekend. Police everywhere.
- Shaun
  
  I live nearby and there’s often police nearby. From what I was told for a witness, one of the drivers tried to take a light he shouldn’t have and the other driver didn’t break in time.
Steve

Automatic transmissions make for incompetent drivers.
- Michelle
  
  +1st gear
- Harkin
  
  Wrong! People are already too distracted with cellphones and texting. Throw in the need to be working a clutch simultaneously and things would get worse, not better.
- Ron
  
  And cars were better when they were made out of metal, and had real engines, and you had to crank start them… Get with it man – manual transmissions aren’t coming back – at best they’ll remain a niche for the nostalgic. They already have cars that will park themselves, and Carnegie Mellon built one that drove itself across the country – if anything, the trend is for cars to begin doing more to drive themselves, not add more manual controls. I’m not saying that’s good or bad, but that’s reality like it or not.
  - charlie
    
    as someone who was recently forced to by an automatic based on choice I do not understand why the car I want is available in the rest of the world with MANUAL TRANNY but here in the US it isn’t. And in Europe the gas prices are much higher… and the drivers much better… and the major roads in much better shape … and the roads have road markings and signage that are useful AND make sense ….
Smitty

Back in 2004 I used to live near here and saw a camary hit a lexus SUV and flip it. So this is trite. Also, it is one thing to get t-boned and flip on a major street, but to flip your car without the assistance of another is of Duke boy quality.
- Cooter
  
  Yee-hee, them Duke boys shore is crafty when it comes t’ gittin’ flipped!
Overgrown Bush

Insanity and outlaw state on Arlington roads.
CW

The Benz is actually upright; the slope of that area was just badly affected by the earthquake.
Steve

You will always have stupid accidents like this in arlington because ARlington is a magnet for narcissistic people who only can think about themselves. When you put them on poorly designed roads, then add in automatic transmissions, further letting them not pay attention to the road because they are too self important to pay attention and have concern for others, you will have accidents like this ALL THE TIME.
- drax
  
  Okay, Steve.
- Tre
  
  I would like to raise your one baseless sweeping statement with yet another: Manual drivers think they are better drivers than automatic drivers and therefore are narscissistically driven to take more risks and rather than seeing roads/highways they visualize Monaco and the Nürburgring. In the process they put people’s lives in danger as they pursue the perfect 0-60 on Fairfax drive.
Tim

I think a troll has moved into the area.
JimPB

Steve — Do you have data on the prevalence of narcissism in ArlCo vs. elsewhere (note: the mean prevalence of narcissitic personality disorder in the nonclinical population is a bit over 1%, with a range of up to 6%)?
on the adequacy of the design of ArlCo roads vs. elsewhere?
on auto transmissions contributing to accidents?
- Steve
  
  If you’ve ever left the DC area, particularly Arlington, and went to places other than NYC or LA, you wouldn’t need a “study” to prove how narcissistic people are here.
  
  Have you ever left Arlington? Ever been on a road outside of it? How can you not openly admit how poorly the roads are designed here. No merges onto major highways like Route 50. The horrific “grid” they have here where a road stops and starts up again 2 miles away….
  
  Automatics make people incompetent drivers. A child could drive a car with an automatic. that’s case enough for banning them.
- Zoning Victim
  
  I thought the automatic transmissions make incompetent drivers comment was the funniest post of the day until I read this. I wonder why a bunch of narcissists that only care about themselves are magnetically drawn to one of the more liberal towns in the area, if not the entire country.
  - Steve
    
    Can I take a WILD GUESS that you are one of the very transients I’m describing?
    
    The transients that come here are the very problem we read about on a daily basis on here.
    Why do you guys come here? It’ snot my fault you come from some sh*thole that you think you are too good for. Why do you have to ruin this place? The natives here deserve better.
    - Zoning Victim
      
      Yes, I’m a ridiculously narcissistic transient from a “sh*thole” who drives a vehicle with an automatic transmission, and you read about the horrible things I do every day. I came here because when I was about six years old, DOJ transferred my father from “sh*thole” to DC.
      
      I’ve been in all manner of places outside of Arlington, and I don’t find that there are more bad people here than there are anywhere else. Sure, mannerisms are different and people are more polite in small southern towns and their communities are more tight-knit than they are here, like any city, but I’ve run into relatively few people who I would classify as narcissistic no matter where I go. Usually when you think everyone else has an attitude problem, the problem is actually with you.
      
      And for the record, I could and did drive vehicles with standard transmissions when I was a child.
Tabby

I’m convinced that there should be a requirement for special licenses to drive SUVs.

I parked next to one the other day in the garage across from the Whole Foods. I thought–hmm, maybe not.

Et voila, the driver hit me backing up. There are terrible scrapes that have effectively decreased the value of my car by hundreds or more.

Was there a note? Oh no, of course not. Not in this area full of self-centered a-holes.

EFF YOU!
JimPB

LA, yes; also Iowa. Indiana, Ohio. New York State, Maryland; Far East — Hong Kong, Cambodia, Thialand, Laos, Iran, Israel. Then, of course, Arlington — with lots of exposure to DC..

On the whole, drivers here are polite. Some are impatient/aggressive.
My observation is that this tends to correlate with the cost of the vehicle and presumably the income and self-perceived status of these drivers. Narcisstic? Maybe/ But as a clinical researcher whose scope of work includes personality, I have learned that clinical impressions and views are often wrong. So I look to data.

Some of our road problems reflect roadways dating from horse and buggy and wagon days; a prime example, Glebe Road from Chain Bridge. It is also the case that the traffic load on many roads far exceeds the planned maximum. We’re not alone in this regard.

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