Motor vehicle fatalities declined slightly in 2017, says a new release from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Where 37,461 people were killed in traffic accidents in 2016, the number fell to 37,150 in 2017 — not a big decrease, but it is going in the right direction. Since miles of driving grew by 1.2 percent, the fatality rate per billion miles declined even more.
NHTSA doesn’t have the data broken down by kinds of accidents yet, but that didn’t stop the Detroit Free Press from simultaneously publishing a scare-piece claiming that “pedestrian fatalities skyrocket in U.S.” I’m not sure what the news is in this article since it is based on data reported here a full seven months ago.
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As the Antiplanner expressed last October, increasing traffic congestion probably plays a role in the increase in pedestrian deaths. Transportation engineers should take care that the measures they implement to improve safety have been proven to work and are not just following the latest urban planning fads.
The increase in pedestrian fatalities could also be because of the decrease in visability of pedestrians in newer cars. I go to a car show every year and sit in many vehicles. The roof pillars have increased in width in the last 20 years so that in most new vehicles there is a blind spot on the left of the driver where a pedestrian on a crosswalk can disappear in the center of the street. In a 2017 Prius I have to be very careful in areas with pedestrians to make sure I look round pillar to make sure non are crossing in front of me. I have also noted that whereas 30 years ago few pedestrians crossed on a red walk sign this seems to have increased. The Prius is also very quite running on electric only in slow crowded streets and I have to be very careful as many people appear to cross the street looking only in one direction and apparently are counting on hearing a car rather than also looking. So decreased visability of pedestrians, more crossing on a red walk sign, and very quiet vehicles might all be a reasons for the increase in pedestrian fatalities.
I’ve also noted at the annual car shows the proliferation of large, colorful, multi-menu touchscreen dashboard panels. They are dazzling in the showroom and a disaster in real world use, giving no tactile feedback & requiring the driver to look away from the road for lengthy periods to operate the vehicle’s secondary controls.
BTW – I don’t buy any novelty in the ‘silence of electric cars’ thing. Many new IC cars – especially expensive luxury models – operate just as quietly over the road.
Electric or hybrid cars operating in electric-only mode really are quiet w/o sound warning systems. I’ve been surprised riding a bike in high density/high dollar Cherry Creek/Denver when a hybrid Escalade sidles up to me in electric mode. All Prii and Leaves though in my experience emit some kind of sound warning at low speeds. As far as I know, 81 FR 90416 setting minimum sound requirements for hybrid and electric vehicles still has a compliance date of 1 Sep 2018.
The newspaper tries to blame the increase in pedestrian deaths on marijuana legalization, but it has little data to justify that. It also blames SUVs, which it says are making up an increasing share of the nation’s auto fleet, but many of those SUVs are really crossover vehicles that are actually smaller than full-sized cars.
Odd that they’re blaming SUVs for increased pedestrian deaths. SUVs almost always have better visibility than today’s low slung sedans. I bet if you compared the seat height of a late model SUV or crossover to the average mid-50s sedan it would be similar, and much higher than a late model sedan in which passengers are sitting very close to the floor. Hence, the popularity of higher seating position SUVs for the US’s aging population.
It’s smart phone zombies.
Maybe in the old days i.e. 20 years ago when every SUV was just shy of a battle tank.
Crossover SUV’s are sedan platforms with SUV bodies. For a slight increase in rear leg room and 100-200% gain in trunk storage. They should focus on stronger shorter stopping breaks.
Crossover SUV’s are the new family vans which is why I despise them so much.
The CR-V is built on a Civic platform; the RAV-4 on a Corolla platform. Both are unibody and offer higher seating height than their sedan counterparts. Those CUVs have braking performance virtually identical to their sedan counterparts. I would be surprised if the few remaining large, BOF SUVs have poor braking considering the eye watering prices they want for them.
CUVs are pretty small, though. I prefer my Toyota minivan which has room to store a bicycle inside along with five people, while getting 25-30mpg at on the interstate with the air on. I’m not a gearhead. Cars are just appliances. to me.
Do we have any sort of a break down on how / where the pedestrian accidents are occuring? As a frequent pedestrian myself it’s painfully obvious that large percentage of drivers are an accident waiting to happen.
For example,they fly through red lights to turn right,meaning any pedestrian stepping out from the curb is going to get hit. The same with just stopping in general. Last evening I was coming into the intersection, walking, when fying in from my left was car. She stopped with her nose of the car out in the street. There’s no way she could’ve braked in time if a pedestrian was there. And she sat their playing on her phone. I didn’t cross until I made eye contact with her.
Yesterday morning walking downtown to a meeting, I had someone nearly take me out going the same direction. I was crossing at a light with both the green and a walk sign. I was half way across when they came from behind to make a left turn nearly hitting me. If I wasn’t around a bunch of coworkers I would’ve kicked her car.
I’m constantly having to deal with bad drivers when I walk. The majority are decent and just many if not more are great. The problem is at the end of the day there are a lot of bad ones out there.
That is to say, I don’t think there’s a cause beyond there just being too many bad drivers on the road.
prk166, I have the exact same experience riding bikes. The majority of car drivers are courteous and alert. But I really have to watch out for drivers looking down instead of out the windshield i.e., texting, eating, playing with the audio/video. Acknowledging courteous driving with a small wave is the only way I know to reinforce that behavior.