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U.S. pedestrian deaths reach a 40-year high

npr.org

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Re: U.S. pedestrian deaths reach a 40-year high

#3

Post by ALittleLight »

"Pedestrian deaths have been climbing since 2010 because of unsafe infrastructure and the prevalence of SUVs, which tend to be more deadly for pedestrians than smaller cars, according to Martin"

The report itself shows there's an increase in pedestrian fatalities in slightly fewer than half of states and the increase comes from deaths at night and not in the daytime. How would an increase in SUVs (which is a national trend) cause this result?

Re: U.S. pedestrian deaths reach a 40-year high

#5

Post by sien »

Ars has a good article on this :

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2023/06/pedestrian-deaths-rose-...

Check the graph on how there was a big increase in particular states.

Source report can be downloaded at :

https://www.ghsa.org/resources/Pedestrians23

Check page 21 for the report on day vs night deaths.

Does anyone have good data on other countries? I've looked at Australia and there is no great pedestrian death increase. So it's unlikely to be mobile phones driving the increase.

Go here for the Australian dashboard.

https://www.bitre.gov.au/publications/ongoing/road_deaths_au...

Re: U.S. pedestrian deaths reach a 40-year high

#6

Post by littlestymaar »

ALittleLight wrote: post #3

"Pedestrian deaths have been climbing since 2010 because of unsafe infrastructure and the prevalence of SUVs, which tend to be more deadly for pedestrians than smaller cars, according to Martin" The report itself shows there's an increase in pedestrian fatalities in slightly fewer than half of states and the increase comes from deaths at night and not in the daytime. How would an increase in SUVs (which is a national…

> How would an increase in SUVs (which is a national trend) cause this result?

It's going to depend a lot on local pedestrian habits and on the available infrastructures: as a thought experiment say in State A people are never walking in the street, while in State B they are walking a lot, then the national increase in SUV will have no impact on pedestrian death in State A but will have on State B.

Re: U.S. pedestrian deaths reach a 40-year high

#8

Post by robertlagrant »

ALittleLight wrote: post #3

"Pedestrian deaths have been climbing since 2010 because of unsafe infrastructure and the prevalence of SUVs, which tend to be more deadly for pedestrians than smaller cars, according to Martin" The report itself shows there's an increase in pedestrian fatalities in slightly fewer than half of states and the increase comes from deaths at night and not in the daytime. How would an increase in SUVs (which is a national…

I hadn't spotted this, but you're right. It's actually slightly worse - to justify this, the author links to another article titled "Fatal Pedestrian Crashes Increasingly Involve SUVs, Study Finds".

I say this is off because an increase in proportion of SUV involvement is primarily an indictator of popularity of SUVs, rather than anything about SUVs being more deadly.

I happen to believe, fairly uncontroversially, I think, that SUVs are far more deadly than a regular car, hitting adults in the chest instead of the legs, and children in the head instead of the chest, but I also think poor journalism is pretty dangerous, and worth investigating.

Re: U.S. pedestrian deaths reach a 40-year high

#9

Post by robertlagrant »

littlestymaar wrote: post #6
ALittleLight wrote: post #3

"Pedestrian deaths have been climbing since 2010 because of unsafe infrastructure and the prevalence of SUVs, which tend to be more deadly for pedestrians than smaller cars, according to Martin" The report itself shows there's an increase in pedestrian fatalities in slightly fewer than half of states and the increase comes from deaths at night and not in the daytime. How would an increase in SUVs (which is a national…

> How would an increase in SUVs (which is a national trend) cause this result? It's going to depend a lot on local pedestrian habits and on the available infrastructures: as a thought experiment say in State A people are never walking in the street, while in State B they are walking a lot, then the national increase in SUV will have no impact on pedestrian death in State A but will have on State B .

Only if this is true. If the increase at night then it's unlikely to be because of SUVs, unless there's correlating evidence that shows it's states where SUVs are driven at night more.

If there were evidence found that is linked to nighttime, e.g. because more people are crossing roads at night than before, or wearing less night-visible clothing than before, then that would be the place to start.

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