In 2008, I was angry about a St. Louis Post-Dispatch article that blamed a car, rather than driver, for a death.

16 years later, I tried to track down the broken URL and find their current headlines today are blaming cars for crashing into buildings and running over and dragging people.

I still want to be annoyed at this phenomenon; as ascribing sin to our tools helps motorists evade responsibility. But maybe I should embrace that we’re casting moral failings to “cars” so we might determine that they are evil and need to be banned from places with people.

EDIT: I recently redisovered Erica C. Barnett’s more articulate rant:

Imagine how the headlines would be different if the man who broke the girl’s legs with his SUV had done so with his bare hands.