Two local St. Louis news stories (both involving traffic accidents) yesterday received a lot of air time, but the follow through as to the cause and effect of those stories is no where. This can be frustrating when the incidents are shocking and then no news about the why, who and result.
The first involved a pedestrian who was hit by a car on Skinker around 6 am yesterday morning. This accident affected us on the seminary campus because when Skinker was shut down by police, streams of cars made their way onto the campus looking for a way back to Clayton Road and Highway 40. At the beginning we had no idea what the cause was, but the helicopters flying over head told us there must have been an accident close by. Turns out a woman was hit as she crossed Skinker and eventually died of her injuries. But that's about all we know. Why was she crossing Skinker in the dark at 6? Did she park her car on the East side of Skinker? Her backpack was left in the road, was she a teacher? Did she cross in the crosswalk and was hit by a car running a red light or did she cross with a red light?
The second traffic story took place on I-70 near Wright City involving 4 cars in what was described as a head on collision at high speed. There were photos of the cars on local news programs and their web pages but no explanation of exactly how a head on happens on an interstate. After searching local news web sites I finally found one, just one, outlet (Fox 2) which gives a more complete explanation. The others just dropped the story. One woman was killed when she swerved to avoid an animal, crossed the median and ended up in the other lanes of traffic. Horrific.
Don't local news people think it's important to complete their stories with follow up? Stories which consumed their air time at the beginning?
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