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Man on scooter killed in crash with car in Brighton

Boston Police report a man, 50, died following a collision with a car around 10 a.m. on Beacon Street in front of Boston College. The cause of the crash is still under investigation; no citations have been issued at this point.

UPDATE: The victim was Andrew McAfee, an emergency-room physician and epidemiologist at Brigham and Women's Hospital. See the comments for a note sent to the Brigham and Women's community this afternoon.

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Comments

damn.

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Assuming this is the same incident - he was an emergency medicine doc at BWH, according to an email that just went out. Very sad.

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This message was broadcast to all Brigham and Women's Hospital employees this afternoon:
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Dear Colleagues,

It is with the greatest of sadness that we inform you of the untimely death of Andrew T. McAfee, MD, MS, a beloved member of our physician community, who was killed this morning in a motor scooter accident.

An attending physician in the Department of Emergency Medicine since 1994 and Instructor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Andy was a gifted clinician, teacher and scholar.

While Andy received many awards, his most cherished recognition was Outstanding Research Mentor, awarded by the residents in the Harvard-Affiliated Emergency Medicine Residency.

Beginning in 2004, Andy served as Executive Director of Epidemiology for i3 Drug Safety in Waltham, while continuing his clinical career in the Emergency Department at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Most recently, he accepted an offer to rejoin Brigham and Women’s Hospital full-time as a member of the Department of Pharmacoepidemiology and Pharmacoeconomics. He was a gifted epidemiologist and held a Master of Science degree in epidemiology from the Harvard School of Public Health. His research focused on large scale evaluation of the safety and effectiveness of widely-prescribed pharmaceutical agents in adults and children.

Above all, Andy was a devoted husband to his wife, Jill Hahn, and their three children, Emma, Jordan and Elie, who were the center of his life and always foremost in his thoughts and decisions. Our hearts are heavy today in the wake of this inestimable loss and we join you in offering our support to each other and to Andy’s loved ones.

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Sounds like a literally awesome person.

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He was a very kind and lovely person. My heart goes out to Jill and the family.

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I have no idea what happened in this particular accident.

That said, we are at a time of year where I enjoy the light traffic, but still notice a decline in safety due to new arrivals in an unfamiliar city, many of them unaccustomed to the conditions in the area. That means more addled pedestrians, confused and lost drivers trying to get cell-phone directions or confused by their GPS units not keeping up with the city grid, and people with no idea how or where to ride their bikes.

Heads up - silly season. No matter your mode, keep alert to others who are lost and not paying attention!

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There have been numerous pedestrian accidents on this stretch of Beacon St. With the addition of parking allowed on the eastbound side and new bike lanes on both sides, there is bound to be some confusion. Please be mindful of crosswalks and bike lanes throughout the region, especially as students are returning to their campuses.

As some of us at Boston College witnessed the aftermath of this accident, our thoughts go out to this man's family.

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I ride this route most days commuting into Boston on my scooter. I often worry about stopping at a crosswalk as usually I have some SUV running up me rear

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RIP to the doctor and no disrespect to his family but I'm surprised an ER doc would even ride a bike in Boston.
I've ridden elsewhere and ride trails here but there's no way I'll ride in rush hour traffic.
I don't care how it "should" be.
The fact is it's deadly.
I'll take the T or even drive and live another day to lower my carbon print.

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This was a motorized scooter.

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I won't be in traffic unless I'm in a car.
I'll walk even if it takes three times as long.

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This seriously pisses me off. I ride that route every morning and the drivers are out of control!!. This death is on the throws of the death of Marcia Kearney who was killed riding her Vespa last month less than a mile from this accident. The police need to do there job and enforce the law to keep the roads safe!!!

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The speed limit of this stretch is 30mph. If that speed limit is enforced, how if there a fatal accident????

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You stand in the middle of the street.
I'll drive towards you at 30 mph and hit you.
Let's see what happens.
Please get a brain.

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I learned to curse from my Dad as he drove around Boston on visits from NYC to family in and around Boston. This is not another Boston driver joke but testimony that it is worse than ever. Where are the cops? There needs to be a concerted effort to change the driving culture with serious moving violation ticketing. And also I want to see the same aimed at T riders. Move away from the freak'n doors and take the damn backpacks off.

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Ticketing is the best way to make Bostonians drive more safely? Sounds a little cynical to me.

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1. require all new drivers to pass a comprehensive driving exam with >75% score (example of such an exam is the GMAC survey exam - which is a lot like the exams in states with comprehensive requirements and Canadian provinces)

2. require existing drivers to do the same to keep their licenses

3. require all new drivers to pass a standardized comprehensive road exam - no more three questions off the top of a cop's head crap, show you know it all

4. Give existing drivers three tries to do the same on a simulator to keep their licenses.

Cars are heavy equipment and serious responsibility, yet MA has seriously bad driving conditions and doesn't require skills to match. I'm not just talking junior operators and senior citizens but everybody including me - want to keep driving? Prove you have the skills and knowledge to be allowed to do so.

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I'm a new driver and I'd feel a lot more confident about my skills if there were a completely safe way to practice them, like a simulator, before getting behind the wheel. A real simulator for every new driver is probably too expensive to be implemented, but the RMV could start by changing its exams.

My permit exam was probably 50% questions on penalties for junior operator violations. These might be helpful in scaring a teenager out of driving with other teenagers, but it's completely irrelevant to everyone older than 18. There were far fewer questions on when/why to yield, where to stop and when to start at intersections, and actual rules-of-the-road, and it seems to me that these violations are committed by drivers of all ages.

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But I had a freind in the registry who told me that one of the biggest problems with having difficult tests is that there are a lot of people that cannot speak English and would fail any type of difficult test no matter how many times you give it.

Now that is why they should have harder oral exams or tests while driving. But in the end any "test" isn't going to show you anything about how you can drive. People are going to be so nervous or not nervous that your driving skills never show during these road tests.

I think a 50 hour supervised course (on the road or track) is the best thing to do.

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Running a red light should be a license suspended a minimum of one week and until driver attends a 3-hour driving safety awareness class. In the class, you learn a lot about people slaughtered by red light runners.

Taking a turn without signaling-- you get two warnings, then it's the one-week suspension and awareness class for each subsequent offense.

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Tests can be given in Spanish, French, and Russian too.

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But the message I got was that a lot of people cannot read or write in any language, so it didn't matter what language the test was in. So you basically have literate people being able to drive and illeterate people not being able to drive. Then there is that whole other issue of people who think that these tests should only be given in English anyway since the signs are in English.

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Test all you want. People will learn what they need to pass the test and then drive like a-holes unless there are consequences for driving as such. And if they fail the test many will drive unlicensed. San Diego, and I'm sure other cities, have dedicated traffic enforcement officers out during the day.
This could start as an awareness campaign with warnings given out.
And then strict enforcement of traffic laws, especially those effecting safety and traffic flow.
Start fining people huge amounts for blocking the box or not yielding to pedestrians and they'll take the time to stop.
It's a matter of consequences.
Jaywalking would need to be enforced as well.

Alas, it will never happen in Boston.

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I was biking through right after this accident. I could tell from the looks of people's faces that the accident was very bad. I said a prayer going by and am really sad to hear that he passed away.

I'm not sure if this accident was related to the crosswalks on that stretch of the road. I'd like to find out.

I am a grad student at BC, I bike in to school now but I used to commute from west mass. The crosswalks there are terrible. When driving, anytime I would try to stop for pedestrians, other cars behind me would honk, try to go around me because they thought I was turning into BC or would nearly rear-end me. As a student, crossing Beacon to get to the graduate student center is one of the most dangerous road-crossings -- especially with a crosswalk to make you feel safe when cars don't stop! Cars rarely stop and when they do, it's at their own hazard. The average speeds of cars must be far over 30mph. As a biker, leaving BC, I usually try to walk my bike across the crosswalk to start biking north on Beacon. Again, cars don't stop to let me cross. Just yesterday, one stopped and was almost rear ended, which resulted in a honk-fest.

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getting more and more aggressive and even less caring about the conseqences of their attitudes and actions.

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