While this is a tragedy, it’s also the predictable outcome of a chosen course of action. If we choose to use a busy roadway as an emergency landing site, we should know we are increasing the risk of property damage, injury, and death to motorists. We–the aviation community–assume certain risks when we fly, among them the risks from a variety of emergencies that require an off-field landing. We knowingly accept those risks. It is not justifiable for us to transfer those risks to motorists, pedestrians, etc. who did not opt in to the risks of aviation.
I fly a lot at night (62 of my 103 hours over the last 12 months). I rule out a lot of roads as emergency sites at night due to traffic speed and volume. Given the choice of a vacant (or nearly so) roadway, a dark spot which could be anything from an open field to heavy woods, or a busy roadway, I’d take only the first two. Not because landings on roadways always end badly–they don’t–but because I’m morally unwilling to transfer the risk of single-engine nighttime flying to those on the ground.