Roads Are Getting Deadlier for Pedestrians

https://www.npr.org/2021/03/23/980438205/americas-roads-are-getting-deadlier-and-fatality-rates-are-worse-for-minorities

by upofadown • 5 years ago

50 106 5 years ago

npr.org

jtdev4• 5 years ago

Maybe the problem is that more pedestrians are occupying space in roads intended for large, heavy, dangerous, automobiles than in previous years? I have hundreds of miles of bike trails within minutes of my residence (as do most Americans), yet people continue to ride bikes in the middle of major roads used for mass transit, freight, etc. I just don't understand why people think this is a good idea.

ohples4• 5 years ago

Because people are riding their bikes and walking to get places, not just recreationally . Those bike trails are probably great for a nice weekend trip, but not getting groceries or going to work.

rob74• 5 years ago

Maybe the problem is not only the failure of planners to provide safe spaces for pedestrians and cyclists, but also the drivers of these "large heavy dangerous automobiles" who behave like the roads belong to them alone...

jtdev4• 5 years ago

I constantly see cyclists fail to stop at stop signs/signals, dart into oncoming traffic, ride multiple riders abreast across roads, etc. Cyclists need to take some responsibility here.

Also, do cyclists register their bikes within the states that they ride them? Do they pay taxes on tires, fuel, etc.? Maybe cyclists should consider that roads were designed and intended for automobiles...

ch4s37• 5 years ago

Planners usually do add bike lanes when re-thinking streets. Politicians usually fail to implement these improvements. Sometimes NIMBY groups block them or have them removed after the fact.

wlesieutre• 5 years ago

The article leaves it ambiguous over why Lucy Le was in the road.

So to clarify for anyone thinking "that's not the car's fault, they would've been watching for pedestrians on the sidewalk," there were no sidewalks. Only road.

Not uncommon for suburbs in the US, because why would anyone want to walk when you could drive a 4000 lb SUV everywhere?

nsajko• 5 years ago

Pedestrian ≠ cyclist.

Regarding your actual point, obviously the roads meant for automobiles and similar are the only way to get from A to B for almost all A and B, leaving many cyclists no other choice than to ride among automobiles.

jtdev4• 5 years ago

There’s another obvious choice here: stay out of the road, or accept that it’s a dangerous place to be.

linuxftw6• 5 years ago

Pedestrians are getting dumber. I was taught as a child, never wear headphones when walking down the street or crossing the street. People today routinely are not only listening to music that completely drowns out the world around them, they're staring at a phone and completely oblivious.

Drivers are also to blame because they're doing the same dang thing!

yoz-y3• 5 years ago

When riding my bicycle I am just appalled at how almost suicidal many pedestrians are. Not only it's par for the course to not look around, it somehow became normalized to cross the street in a diagonal facing AWAY from incoming traffic.

Cyclists are also completely unaware, it's almost depressing to stop at a red light and just watch swaths of riders zoom past into incoming traffic.

One thing i'd like is diagonal crossings that would force you to look in the traffic direction. But then, most people don't bother to walk 10 meters to use the crossing anyways.

ethbr02• 5 years ago

Like they say in boxing, "protect yourself at all times."

Earbuds or headphones while walking near a motor vehicle road with anything shy of a barrier-separated sidewalk should be illegal.

swiley• 5 years ago

Cars are guests. If you can't drive carefully then you should not be allowed to drive.

FpUser• 5 years ago

Let's be fair. If you can't cross the road carefully and accordingly to the rules maybe you should not be allowed to walk either? It takes two to tango. All too often I see idiots suddenly and arbitrary crossing the road in front of oncoming traffic while staring at their phone screens.

ch4s37• 5 years ago

It's mostly down to vehicles being larger over the timespan measured. More mass means you're more likely to die. And taller wider vehicles have larger blind spots for pedestrians.

There are infrastructure issues too, but vehicle size alone is sufficient to explain most of the increase.

linuxftw6• 5 years ago

This sounds like a testable theory. What's the pedestrian death rate for city buses? They've always been in high-pedestrian areas and are much larger than the average vehicle.

mikece2• 5 years ago

It's mostly down to vehicles being larger over the timespan measured.

My neighbor's Smart Car and Cooper Mini beg to differ. Also, the proliferation of electric cars requires shedding weight in order to get more mileage. Sure, we still have lots of massive SUVs on the road but I would dispute the notion that vehicles overall are getting heavier on average.

jcims2• 5 years ago

I don't think that works out. The statistic is that pedestrian deaths are up 46% since 2010. There are possibly scenarios where vehicle mass or configuration makes a difference, but cars and trucks haven't changed that much in a decade. A spot check of an F150 and a Toyota Camry don't really yield any substantial change in that time frame.

noobermin• 5 years ago

This attitude is pretty clearly victim blaming. You don't blame women for being sexually harassed for what they wear or black people shot by the police for wearing a hoodie or something, I don't think you should blame victims of traffic deaths for their deaths over the perpetrators.

Avicebron2• 5 years ago

But you have to admit that some behaviors are inherently more risky. If the pedestrian is actively engaging in high risk behaviors...why is it wrong to point out those behaviors are higher risk and therefore potentially more likely to be victims of an accident. If someone sprints across an intersection at a green light with no warning to the drivers, isn't that more irresponsible than waiting for the light?

linuxftw6• 5 years ago

It doesn't matter who you blame and who's the victim, the people are dead, often times because they failed to take their own basic safety into account. Always assume that cars don't see you, won't stop for you, might run lights, might make illegal turns, and will kill you.

program_whiz2• 5 years ago

Unpopular opinion -- you can victim blame to a reasonable level. If a pedestrian is walking backwards, blindfolded with music blaring in their ears into a crowded highway, then they do bear some responsibility for what happens. Same with your (morally reprehensible) examples, its possible to construct a case where the "victim" all but guarantees the outcome by their own actions (e.g. suicide by cop).

The point of discussion is "what level of responsibility if any do pedestrians bear in these accidents". Your point tries to make a false moral-equivalency with rape and makes the claim "0 responsibility". I argue there is nuance and just like rape, its possible to make it more / less probable with reasonable measures, but beyond that point, it is wrong to blame the victim.

So if you disagree, then address the point: should we consider the effect that pedestrians looking at phones, J-walking or ignoring signals, and listening to music has on safety or _only_ a single factor (drivers)? If you want to actually save lives then I'd argue for examining all reasons pedestrians are being hit by cars (and not resort to moral reasons to avoid even asking the question).

recursiveturtle• 5 years ago

A pedestrian could easily be the cause of a traffic accident for the reasons OP mentioned. They could cause an accident by jaywalking, not obeying pedestrian signals, etc., whereby a driver avoids hitting them and swerves into another vehicle(s).

Who's "the victim" here that should not be blamed?

Or, negligence from the driver, as the OP mentioned.

Or, both.

This comparison does not seem tenable.

kop3164• 5 years ago

Since going back to school, I moved close enough to where I can commute to and from school using an electric bike. I recommend it whole heartly if you can do it, but I have noticed a few things as a cyclist (Note I am in the USA in a medium sized city, and the law in my state is if you are on the road, you follow the same laws as a cyclist):

- There are a LOT of cyclists that don't bother respecting traffic laws (e.g. blow past red lights without even stopping, not respecting right of way, etc.). It's to the point that when I stop at a stop sign and let the other person go because they have the right of way, they are actually surprised I do it. I have noticed similar things with pedestrians as well (e.g. walk where there isn't a cross walk, jump out when there isn't a walk).

- There are a staggering amount of motorists that are on their phones texting/checking facrbook/I don't know what they are doing. I really wish this would have a much harsher penealty and it was enforced much more.

"Slower speed limits and street redesigns such as wider sidewalks, narrow roads and rumble strips are among the group's priorities." A lot of motorists DO NOT care about the speed limit. 25 mph in a neighboorhgood with kids? yeah it's still amazingly common to be cycling at 25 mph on a road to be pasted by a car going 40-50 mph.

I say those things to say I think there are bad actors on both sides, and to be honest, I don't know much of a solution.

labatyd• 5 years ago

Most of those people on their phones are probably using the GPS to get to their destination. I know that some of them are being irresponsible and using Facebook or something, but phone navigation has replaced the map quest printout of my day with everyone young and old in my circle.

kop3164• 5 years ago

That be be so, but having it on your lap or at the transmission shifter so you have to look away from the road to look at it causes the same effect I see: the driver is not paying attention to the road.

BoorishBears• 5 years ago

Thise priorities are things drivers care about.

You get people doing 40-50 in a 25 when the road is as wide and straight as a 40-50 mph but the speed limit has been reduced because there are homes with kids nearby.

Make the road narrow, add curves to it, and suddenly people will do lower speeds naturally because they don't feel like they have as much of a buffer.

Same reason you're more likely to find someone speeding on a highway than down a narrow side street

kop3164• 5 years ago

Make the road narrow, add curves to it, and suddenly people will do lower speeds naturally because they don't feel like they have as much of a buffer.

I am not sure how that would be possible where I live. This would involve destroying a bunch of residential homes to add curves (the neighborhood I am in goes back at least to the 1930s, as thats when the house I am in was originally built).

stefan_2• 5 years ago

It's 2021. There is no reason cars should be able to speed at all if every gimmick drone from Amazon can refuse to fly into protected airspace. Half of HN is expecting that by 2025 they will sell their car and permanently ride on some Waymo taxi; are they going to reach over the separator and push down on the gas pedal, if one exists anymore? No, nobody will give a fuck that the thing is doing 20mph in a 20mph zone. We can have that today even we can't have the autonomous driving part.

rriepe• 5 years ago

This article is going off of incidents per miles driven, but that doesn't make any sense. It's the level of walking that matters, not the level of driving. Especially when one has gone way up and one has gone way down.

The statistic only says that cars are more likely to hit pedestrians, not that being a pedestrian is itself more dangerous. If people were walking 2x as much in 2020 then this 20% increase would actually mean pedestrians were relatively safer. There's no conclusion to be drawn until you consider the miles-walked number too.

ruddct2• 5 years ago

Poke around at what American auto manufacturers are selling these days, it's almost entirely high-grill trucks and SUVs, we don't sell much in the way of cars (and even then, they're mostly of the bigger/sportier variety).

When you get hit by something with a high grill you're more likely to go under the vehicle than over the hood (compared to a car).

This is allowed because when we evaluate cars for safety, we exclusively look at safety of the driver/passengers, not someone getting hit. This is a great place to start when looking for solutions to this problem.

Of course lack of safe infrastructure and a legal system that frequently dismisses 'accidents' also play a role.

EDIT: I'm talking about the American market and the way the NHTSA evaluates auto safety.

https://www.consumerreports.org/car-safety/nhtsa-too-slow-in...

https://www.codot.gov/safety/traffic-safety-pulse/2019/march...

https://usa.streetsblog.org/2020/04/28/vehicle-safety-standa...

toxik2• 5 years ago

The second problem is it becomes an arms race. If I’m in a normal height car and get hit by the monster trucks out there today, I am more exposed. So I buy a big monster truck, to be safe.

nitrogen• 5 years ago

I currently drive a car that is a little over four feet tall. I regularly pull up to intersections and try to turn corners where my roofline is below the bottom of the windows of the megatrucks next to me. So yes, the arms race is real, and my next car will be taller and bigger.

_nalply• 5 years ago

And the car's inmates are also getting bigger.

moron4hire• 5 years ago

A simple Google search for "vehicle safety testing for pedestrian accidents" pulls up quite a few manufacturer safety testing videos.

burntoutfire• 5 years ago

This is allowed because when we evaluate cars for safety, we exclusively look at safety of the driver/passengers, not someone getting hit.

At least in Europe, pedestrian safety is part of the assessment:

https://www.euroncap.com/en/vehicle-safety/the-ratings-expla...

deelowe2• 5 years ago

This is allowed because when we evaluate cars for safety, we exclusively look at safety of the driver/passengers, not someone getting hit.

This is not true at all. Pedestrian Safety Requirements are why most modern cars tend to look the same from the front these days:

https://www.hotcars.com/why-pedestrian-safety-ruining-car-de...

https://www.treehugger.com/why-all-modern-cars-look-alike-48...

https://www.caranddriver.com/features/a15118822/taking-the-h...

ruddct2• 5 years ago

Looks like these are talking about hood standards on three-box vehicles/sedans, which don't apply to trucks or SUVs[0] (most of the American market, these days).

[0] https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-20-419.pdf https://one.nhtsa.gov/cars/problems/studies/bumper/index.htm...

stefan_2• 5 years ago

It is your position that Pedestrian Safety Requirements have caused an unprecedented rise in both the weight (with the obvious increase in kinetic energy) and size, particularly height of new cars?

david38• 5 years ago

This isn’t even close to true. Front end crash compatibility for example has been a thing for decades.

mikece2• 5 years ago

Not only are pedestrians more distracted (wearing headphones/earbuds/etc) but DRIVERS are more distracted as well. If it was only one and not the other it wouldn't be as big of a problem but I suspect distracted drivers are more the problem than any cluelessness on the part of pedestrians.

xnx• 5 years ago

Stand by any intersection (in Chicago at least) and you will see very close to 100% of drivers primarily looking at their phones. Technology truly is the cause of (distraction from smartphones) and solution to (autonomous software drivers) all our problems.

herdcall• 5 years ago

It seems publishers have figured out that injecting identity/race into every single topic gets views these days. What is the benefit of analyzing increasing pedestrian deaths by race here?

Avicebron2• 5 years ago

It must be a way to generate clicks at this point. There isn't any benefit

xphilter• 5 years ago

What’s the point of leaving it out if it’s evident after seeing the data?

brighton36• 5 years ago

"There are no facts, only interpretations". It could just as easily be the case that people with black hair are more affected than people with white hair, if that was the taxonomy we applied to the dataset.

devb• 5 years ago

It raises questions of systemic injustice. If there is a demographic discrepancy, it is worth asking why.

ryandvm• 5 years ago

Ugh. At least in the US, we already know why.

Due to a pretty dark and nasty history of race-based subjugation; race and inequality were tightly intertwined in this country and we're still untangling it to this day.

So... since finance is an integral component of pretty much every social interaction, economic inequality rears it's head everywhere. Correlation seems like causation and all that, which means that if every single issue is looked at through the lens of "is this racist?" the result is always "uh oh, maybe it is."

I dunno. Seems to me that constantly re-casting economic inequality issues as racial inequality issues is going go to make race relations worse rather than better...

MereInterest5• 5 years ago

Because socioeconomic status is correlated to race due to a long history of racism. That socioeconomic status impacts where people live, street designs in those areas, parking availability, whether people drive, walk, or take public transport, etc. All of these impact how often somebody is on the squishy human side of a human vs car collision.

You can't improve a problem without first measuring its impact.

PeterisP2• 5 years ago

Wouldn't it be more accurate to directly measure car accidents with respect to socioeconomic status, instead of proxies like race?

DC1350• 5 years ago

The problem is obviously poverty and not race so it’s pointless to put it in the article except for clickbait. If black people who can afford to live in nice neighborhoods and own vehicles are still hit more often then it might actually matter.

hcurtiss2• 5 years ago

But is killing people of any particular race somehow more or less of an issue relative to killing people of another race? That would be a pretty provocative position. One might even say racist.

SpicyLemonZest• 5 years ago

There’s a particular political subculture dominant at most media outlets, where “by the way this is about race” is just something you’re expected to say from time to time. It’s seen as disrespectful to analyze an issue without thinking about race. Largely I think you can just read past it; you’ll note that most commenters outside this thread aren’t really mentioning race, despite how you or I would react if we encountered a racist policy.

antattack2• 5 years ago

It could be that places where minorities live have less sidewalks, less street lighting, faster posted speed limits, less traffic enforcement, and their economic status require them to walk more.

NDizzle• 5 years ago

Sounds to me like you just described my rural area!

mc32• 5 years ago

Wait till they look at vehicle pedestrian statistics from less developed countries and have them figure out a way to blame someone else.

MereInterest5• 5 years ago

This article only touches on what exactly makes roads deadlier, but it's an interesting topic. For example, increasing the curb radius at an intersection is generally seen as good for drivers, because it allows the driver to take the turn at faster speeds. However, this increased speed increases both the curb to curb distance for pedestrians and the speed of collisions.

The article touches on SUVs being more common and deadlier, but doesn't go into why that is. For a typical sedan, a pedestrian is struck at the legs, then rolls over the car. By contrast, an SUV strikes a pedestrian in the chest, and is pushes the pedestrian forward because it is too high to roll over. This means that the pedestrian both has a higher delta v (direct impact vs glancing blow), a shorter collision duration (single impact vs roll), and a more fragile region (the torso has important organs that the legs so not). All of these combine to increase the fatality rate when hitting pedestrians, turning a broken leg into a death.

I know that sometimes SUVs or trucks are needed, such as for electrical workers who need to get to a repair site during/after a snowstorm. In most cases, though, there is a social responsibility not to buy SUVs, due to the danger they pose to society in general.

dghlsakjg3• 5 years ago

Ugh. I already know what the comments are going to look like from reading the headlines.

Perspective 1: Cars are, by default, supreme on the road. The use of personal motor vehicles on public roads should be an assumed right, a first principle of modern life. Non motorized transport should be assumed to be lesser in all cases. Complaints about ‘distracted pedestrians’, and people ‘misusing’ a bicycle on public roads.

Perspective 2: The enlightened one whose eyes have been opened. Personal cars are the absolute devil. Unredeemable assholes drive pickup trucks with hoods as high as my forehead. Etc, etc.

How did we get to a place where this is so contentious? Why is everything politicized to extremes.

minikites• 5 years ago

Why is everything politicized to extremes.

Everything is political, "politics" is just shorthand for "this is how I think people should be treated". Politics is about how we structure and interact with society, so of course it permeates everything.

dsnr• 5 years ago

Everything is political

This is a left-wing narrative. When you want to change the entire system from the ground up you want everyone to be involved in politics and campaign for your cause. Those who prefer to be left out of it become your enemies. This is the same narrative that was used in USSR and everyone knows how it played out for them.

ethanbond• 5 years ago

How did we get to a place where we think contentiousness is de facto a problem and is “political” (used as a slur)?

These are problems people care about. No one is actually stating the exaggerated positions you’ve characterized.

dghlsakjg3• 5 years ago

I wish I was wrong. Ctrl f your way through the comments.

There is a comment on hood heights.

There is a comment about cyclists using streets even though there are recreational paths.

There are several comments about distracted walking.

I use the term political as derogatory in a contentious discussion because 1) people come into them unwilling to change their mind 2) their beliefs are largely inherited and they will not acknowledge or state the assumptions and underlying opinions that underly their positions

AcerbicZero• 5 years ago

My opinion is that we lack a culture of automotive excellence, and driving as a real “skill” is long gone. People operate vehicles with the bare minimum of requirements on roads almost devoid of any practical safety policing; speeding tickets and DUIs aside, I rarely see an officer doing much more to encourage good driving habits, and on some level I get it. Traffic stops are deadly and police would like to avoid them....but how else do you police traffic? Letters in the mail perhaps?

Driving is a skill, and if it’s not taken seriously or encouraged then it atrophies like any other skill. One of the best refreshers I’ve ever had was my motorcycle safety course; while I hated it because it was mandatory, it did teach real skills to help keep you alive on the road, and even if I found it boring, most of the people in my class were in dire need of that refresher.

ohples4• 5 years ago

Thats because in most places in the US driving is a necessity in order to function in society. So we need to make it stupid simple for people to maintain a drivers license, less we want them to end up homeless.

IMHO the only way for such a culture to emerge is if driving is not something that is required by a mass amount of people.

linuxftw6• 5 years ago

This is a symptom of low wages and subsidized roads. People can't afford to live near where they work, so they commute. People that commute speed because they're short on time.

We're all still trying to live by the punch clock like it's 1950 and everyone needs to be at their factory station at a certain time, all together at once. It's collective insanity.

aimor• 5 years ago

If you like the article, read the report. Especially the section, "How Can We Reduce Pedestrian Fatalities and Injuries?" There are many things we can and are doing to make streets safer for pedestrians, so it's alarming to me that fatalities have been increasing for over a decade.

https://www.ghsa.org/sites/default/files/2021-03/Ped%20Spotl...

https://www.cdc.gov/transportationsafety/pedestrian_safety/i...

rory• 5 years ago

In the linked study, 75% of the fatalities happen at night. 32% of pedestrians struck are drunk, and 13% of striking drivers are drunk. There is mention of drug treatment as a prevention method, but no specific statistics for non-alcohol intoxication.

It's also notable that fatality rates are only worse for some minorities-- those typically in the lower socioeconomic brackets. And the difference isn't nearly as dramatic as the difference in homicide victims in general.

Yes, we need smaller cars, but it's worth noting that the common case isn't someone being run down walking to the train on their morning commute, as the Doerner quote might insinuate without further research.

Someone• 5 years ago

FTA: “In 2019, 6,301 pedestrians were killed by vehicles on American streets — up 46% from 2010. Over the same timespan, the total for all traffic deaths rose by 5%.”

As always with traffic death data, it is eye-opening to compare with the EU (https://ec.europa.eu/transport/road_safety/sites/roadsafety/...).

There, pedestrian deaths about decreased by a third over about the same period, and stayed at about the same percentage of all traffic deaths (figure 2, page 4), so non-pedestrian traffic deaths also must have decreased significantly.

(And no, it isn’t because US traffic deaths already are very low. They’re high, compared to the EU)

martin__• 5 years ago

It's not mentioned in the article, but I feel like the number of cars with blindingly bright headlights has to factor into this too.

ohples4• 5 years ago

For anyone who wishes to learn more about this sort of stuff I recommend The War on Cars podcast https://thewaroncars.org/

Also, Not Just Bikes on YouTube https://youtube.com/c/NotJustBikes

Roads Are Getting Deadlier for Pedestrians

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