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

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[–] 329 points 5 days ago (55 children)

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.

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.

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  • [–] 177 points 5 days ago (7 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 120 points 5 days ago (5 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 20 points 4 days ago

    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...

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    [–] 84 points 4 days ago (18 children)

    “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.

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  • [–] 18 points 4 days ago*

    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.

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    [–] 43 points 4 days ago (7 children)

    “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.”

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  • [–] 101 points 5 days ago (17 children)
  • [–] 31 points 4 days ago (8 children)
  • [–] 41 points 4 days ago (6 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 days ago*

    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.

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  • [–] 12 points 3 days ago

    I spend a fair bit of time in 'Murica

    There is an entertainment area about a twenty minute walk away from where I stay

    I'd happily walk it, but it's genuinely unwise to do so, so I end up taking ubers

    It's something that I find disappointing

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  • [–] 35 points 4 days ago

    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 :/

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  • [–] 29 points 4 days ago (6 children)

    I watched as Chad Caruso skateboarded the US and I was scared for him the entire way. It's such a huge gamble.

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  • [–] [S] 26 points 4 days ago (5 children)

    It really is.

    I've had cars going the other way on a road slow down to yell at and intimidate me, even though I'm on the other side of the road and observing traffic laws. I wear a motorcycle helmet, in part, for fear that one day one of these nutjobs will throw something at me. The entitlement is absolutely bonkers.

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  • [–] 22 points 4 days ago* (3 children)

    I was on my bicycle one time, on a road that was plenty wide enough for a car to pass me with the required minimum space of four feet while staying in their lane. A car passed me going way farther to the left of me than they needed to, forcing a van that was coming in the opposite direction to pull over to the curb and stop. As he passed me, the van driver stuck himself halfway out his window and started yelling at me "you're gonna get somebody killed!" Asshole, go yell at the driver of the other car, I didn't do shit. And all that happened is it took you an extra five seconds to get to the red light.

    Where I live, 99.9% of drivers are cool and give cyclists plenty of room. But that 0.1% means I'm probably risking my life every time I go for a ride.

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  • [–] 66 points 5 days ago (1 child)

    He wasn't shot, so that's a nice change. /s

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    [–] 57 points 5 days ago (20 children)

    FUCK CARS...especially fuck that this asshole won't suffer anything worse than a slap on the wrist for KILLING someone.

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    [–] 37 points 5 days ago* (12 children)

    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.

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    [–] 23 points 4 days ago* (1 child)

    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...

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    [–] 23 points 4 days ago (1 child)

    All because of stupid North American car companies and their "bigger is more money" philosophy.

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    [–] 24 points 4 days ago (1 child)

    Maybe if we had decent public transport, we could take away elderly licenses without restricting their freedom.

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    [–] 44 points 5 days ago (3 children)

    Guess they picked the wrong country to rollerblade in /s

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    [–] 38 points 5 days ago (10 children)

    Remember, people who don't live here:

    Our rails are almost all shut down, public transit is a joke in all but a few small areas, roads are dangerous to bike or walk on with many not even having a shoulder let alone a reasoable place for traffic that isn't motorized.

    You slmost have to have a car here, by incredibly shitty design.

    And then the cars, now...

    Between the fact that nobody makes a decent car anymore, they all fall apart just about the time your lease is up so you can't even own one only sign eternal contracts for landfill bait, all of them spy on you, and have beacons that are tracked by countless parts of our surveillence capitalism infrastructure on top of sending their own reports on you to the automaker who then sells it to anyone ad everyone, insurance is insanely expensive, and now gas is nuts, as well... And if you have a diesel?

    I don't own a car anymore, and am not in an area with passable public transit. I have one chance a week, insanely early in the morning, to catch a buss for an eight hour trip that would take one by car to get to a hub... Which doesn't even have decent local transit for the town, but does have a meeting of interstates so you can catch other busses to other cities. At leaast those city connections run at least once a day instead of a week.

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    [–] 30 points 5 days ago (1 child)

    Of course an suv. People and their big vehicles thinking they're untouchable and in their private house with no one looking in.

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