Spoiler alert: This column is glib about human tragedy.
America has a growing population of homeless people who are often drug addicts. Donald Trump made their plight a centrepiece of his election campaign.
Homeless people sometimes use bicycles to help transport their bags full of personal possessions when they move from one locale to another.
Crossing the road at an undesignated location is called “jaywalking”.
Volvo Cars is the formerly Swedish auto company now owned by the Geely Holding Group of China.
Uber is a “peer-to-peer” taxi-like ridesharing company headquartered in California.
“Self-driving” is a new technology that allows cars to be driven robotically without human intervention.
Uber has been testing self-driving cars in Arizona, Pittsburgh and Toronto.
“Safety drivers” are humans that babysit self-driving cars.
Blockbuster Video is a defunct American company that used to rent out videotapes for viewing movies at home.
In the USA, using an imitation firearm for a robbery is called “armed robbery”.
Hobby Bench is a Phoenix Arizona store that sells toys and art supplies.
The changing of gender and transsexuality has recently come into vogue in the West.
So…on Sunday evening, 18 March, Rafaela Vasquez, 44, a transsexual, formerly known as Stuart, who had spent four years in prison for using a Hobby Bench imitation gun in attempted robbery of a Blockbuster Video, was safety driver of a self-driving Uber Volvo SUV, when it crashed into and killed Elaine Herzberg, 49, a homeless drug addict, who was jaywalking her bicycle-load of belongings across the road in Tempe Arizona. Herzberg’s daughter has retained a personal injury lawyer to sue Uber for the potentially enormous damages of the first fatality caused by an autonomous vehicle.
“We propose this as most 2018 American story so far this year.”
Tom Paskal is an award winning American journalist, author and screenwriter.