Family of Slain USC Student: Fix L.A. Intersections!

9:44 AM PDT on April 9, 2009

Carmen Bachan speaks to the press before her daughter's funeral. Image: Noozhawk.com

Last weekend, the lives of a family were changed forever, when a distracted driver decided that shaving a couple of seconds of off the trip home for his family was more important than making sure he protected other users of the road. He plowed through the intersection of Jefferson and Hoover, killing USC freshman Adriana Bachan and maiming her companion.

Bachan's family has not been camera-shy in demanding that their daughter's murderer be brought to justice, the alleged driver of the vehicle has been brought in but her passenger who helped remove bodies from the car before it sped off is still at large; but now they're setting their sights on a different target: improving the deadly intersection where Adriana was killed. The Santa Barbara news website Noozhawk has the story:

Welch also spoke for Bachan’s father.
“Jim will be back, and he will be the biggest advocate for that intersection at Jefferson and Hoover,” he said.
The intersection where Bachan was killed is notoriously treacherous forpedestrians, and her mother said she’s on a mission to see that thearea’s safety is improved. She said she’d like to see a pedestrianbridge constructed.
“You’ve all been there and you’ve seen the children crossing and thecars almost hitting them,” she said. “Somebody will do something, thatI can assure you.”
Keeping the intersection foremost in the public’s memory isparamount for Carmen Bachan, and she thanked the media for covering thememorial.
“Keep my baby’s story alive,” she said. “Don’t let it go away.”

While it's more than inspiring to see a family try and turn a tragedy into something positive, it's also a sad statement that the only time people focus on the deadly conditions pedestrians face is when someone dies and their survivors demand it.

Damien Newton

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