In Europe the view is that bigger vehicle = bigger responsibility. In the US the attitude seems to be bigger vehicle = bigger right of way. The party who stands to lose the most is expected to yield the right of way.
U.S. pedestrian deaths reach a 40-year high
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Re: U.S. pedestrian deaths reach a 40-year high
#42I guess pickup trucks fall under the category of SUVs? It's wild how we've lost access to our streets and neighbourhoods for the convenience of mostly suburban vehicle users. Actually not wild, but disgraceful. The majority of roads are too wide and with little options for alternative modes of transport, drivers are growingly frustrated and angry on the road. We continue to make the mistake of thinking the solution i…
> drivers are growingly frustrated and angry
Good luck making policy changes against the wishes of a majority population that's frustrated and angry as it is. We are in deep, deep trouble. Not only are we not removing lanes and giving space back to people, we're still adding lane miles in every city in America. Even my "urbanist" home town of Portland Oregon is about to spend billions to add a few dozen lane miles to an urban freeway that already destroys the entire East bank of our waterfront and a couple historic neighborhoods, and is used mostly by people and companies that don't live here.
Re: U.S. pedestrian deaths reach a 40-year high
#43Article ignores it, but looking at the source data you can see pedestrian deaths were flat, then a large spike in 2020 during Covid, and now we are at a new higher plateau. Cause is not a change in roads, or cars, or more SUVs. Covid/lockdowns changed the way people drive. Less civility, less police enforcement, more chaos. Driving is noticeably worse and more stressful than pre-Covid.
I was sort of curious about whether or not other non-pedestrian motor vehicle fatalities also increased and came across an interesting stat. It looks like overall passenger vehicle occupant fatalities have also increased [1] and, interestingly enough, some of this is probably a result of a lower rate of seat belt usage among those fatally injured [2]. All of this coinciding with Covid.
[1] https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/yearl... [2] https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/yearl...
Re: U.S. pedestrian deaths reach a 40-year high
#44Texting and driving have to be behind some large portion of this increase.
Walking and on their phones, too. In recent years I've seen people step into intersections while on their phone without even looking up. Edit: anyone who disagrees and has downvoted me care to explain why? I wrote the comment from the perspective a pedestrian. I don't even drive! Some cities consider it such problem they've talked about making it illegal to walk around in the street looking at your phone: https://www…
It's blaming the victim?
I see this very often as well, but you're not operating a several ton vehicle. At worst you run into some kid and knock his ice cream over.
It's the presence of cars, their prioritization in our infrastructure, and unenforced laws surrounding them that are the problem.
Re: U.S. pedestrian deaths reach a 40-year high
#45I'm not even slightly surprised by this, sadly. Cops need to start ticketing people who drive like maniacs. I drive in DC, and every week I almost get hit by some loon going 30+ over the limit who doesn't care that I'm in the lane they're merging into. I've never seen anyone get ticketed. The roads have become something out of Mad Max , just pure developing-world anarchy.
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Re: U.S. pedestrian deaths reach a 40-year high
#46In many states you are required to stop if a pedestrian is crossing the street.
What has happened a lot is I will stop to let a pedestrian cross the street at a legal cross walk and the person behind me will assume I am an idiot, honk, and speed around me.
My intuition is this is the cause of a significant amount of pedestrian deaths: impatient drivers that assume every stopped car is just an obstacle to zip around.
We had an 8 year old boy die in my hometown to this exact scenario and I have witnessed too many near collisions to count. I would support making passing like this automatic jail time, equivalent in severity to drunk driving.
Re: U.S. pedestrian deaths reach a 40-year high
#47every time I'm in the car I'm astonished by the number of people looking down at phones while driving. Is my experience unique? Is anyone else surprised about metrics like these?
It could also be the pedestrians looking at their phone, not where they’re going.
Or both combined
Re: U.S. pedestrian deaths reach a 40-year high
#48Isn't it obvious? Distracted drivers and distracted pedestrians from cell phones. I was just rear-ended last week by a distracted driver, luckily I wasn't injured.
There needs to be a measure as to how distracting a car's interface is, and there needs to be regulations around this. Tesla's interface for example, takes far too much time and attention to do simply things like change the fan speed or temperature. I think we need a way to quantify this, and enforce regulations so that our 2023 mini-Batmobiles don't cause more problems than they solve.
In terms of pedestrians, that's a harder problem to solve because I've come across so many pedestrians that just walk out onto the street without looking, or even thinking of looking because they're on their phones.
Re: U.S. pedestrian deaths reach a 40-year high
#49I live in a subdivision full of young families with kids. I'm also a runner, an avid dog walker and someone who walks his kids to and from school every day. As someone out on foot on a daily basis I am constantly blown away by the amount of people speeding on residential streets and not stopping at stop signs. I don't get it! These are clearly people who live in these neighbourhoods yet they don't care enough about t…
Transition to trail running if you can. Ive stopped taking chances with road running because of the insane drivers. Same with biking. Added benefits of being in nature and getting off pavement helps your joints a bit.
Re: U.S. pedestrian deaths reach a 40-year high
#50A large issue in the US is that local communities have very little control over many of the roads in their communities. In addition to locally controlled roads, there are county roads, state roads, and interstates. As a result, even if a community wants to make their road safer, they have no power to do so. There is a county road in my town. The crosswalks make no sense and the road needs to be narrowed to force traf…
> As a result, even if a community wants to make their road safer, they have no power to do so.
Visions of black-clad infrastructure guerillas working at night to install speed bumps on residential roads.