“Last year was the deadliest for pedestrians since 1990,” reports Governing magazine. Maybe; maybe not — the data for the entire year haven’t yet been published. Instead, it appears various interest groups are trying to gain publicity by being the first to report roadway safety news.
In this case, it is the Governors Highway Safety Association (which is really an association of state traffic safety agencies), which just issued a Pedestrian Traffic Safety Report. A couple of weeks ago it was the National Safety Council, which reported that 40,000 people were killed on roadways in 2018 for the third year in a row.
In fact, none of the 2018 numbers are certain because they are based on only the first six months of the year. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), which keeps the “official” data, probably won’t release final 2018 numbers until October. At least, that’s when it released 2017 numbers. It also released “preliminary” numbers for the first half of 2018 at about the same time.
The situation is complicated further because the National Safety Council counts accidents that NHTSA doesn’t consider to be in “roadways,” such as fatalities in driveways and parking lots. The former group also counts people who die up to a year after a crash, while the latter only counts deaths that take place within 30 days of the accident. As a result, the “official” numbers show about 2,500 fewer fatalities than the National Safety Council’s numbers. I don’t know which numbers are “right,” but NHTSA’s numbers are more detailed (including being broken out by type of road) and go back more years to 1900, so they are better to use when looking for trends.
The good news is that fatalities declined in 2017 and declined a bit more in the first six months of 2018. Since vehicle miles of travel have grown, fatalities rates — fatalities per billion miles — have declined even more.
The bad news, according to the Governor’s report, is that pedestrian fatalities are increasing. But that’s not clear from the NHTSA data, which says that in 2017 pedestrian fatalities declined by 1.7 percent compared with 1.4 percent of vehicle occupants. Bicycle fatalities fell by 8.1 percent; the only growth was in occupants of heavy trucks, which grew by 16 percent. (Occupants of light vehicles hit by heavy trucks also experienced an 8.8 percent increase in fatalities.) NHTSA has not posted pedestrian data for 2018, but the Governor’s association estimates the numbers increased by 3 percent.
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In fact, the actual changes in fatalities are so small that they may simply be random. The Governor’s report admits that pedestrian fatalities increased in only two of the nation’s ten largest cities and in 25 of the 50 states.
What someone needs to do, and which the Governor’s report does not do, is determine whether the “zero vision safety” programs adopted by various cities are actually doing anything other than annoy auto drivers. Cities seem to be adopting these programs, which include reducing speed limits, taking lanes away from motor vehicles, and widening sidewalks, without any evaluation of whether they work.
For example, though bicycle fatalities are declining, they are still a problem. According to table 101 of NHTSA’s Traffic Safety Facts, about 30 percent of 2016 bicycle fatalities and nearly half of bicycle injuries were from accidents at intersections. Yet bike lanes end at the intersections — I was even amused to find a sign in Honolulu saying “Bike Land Ending” at an intersection and, on the other side of the street, another sign reading “Bike Lane Begins.”
An Oregon legislator thinks he has the solution to this problem: pass a law saying that the bike lane continues through the intersection. Yet all this would do would be to give the police a reason to cite a driver who hit a cyclist for violating that cyclist’s right-of-way. Actually increasing safety requires coming up with better intersection designs, such as this one.
Every accidental death is a tragedy, but the reality is that traffic fatality rates have declined tremendously in the last few decades. Maintaining that downward trend will require a careful analysis of what works and what doesn’t work rather than overhyped reports about tiny changes in preliminary numbers.
I am highly skeptical of the accuracy of traffic deaths based on three experiences:
When our neighborhood was discussing increased traffic from a proposed local cemetery, proponents hired a consultant who studied official data and said there had been no local traffic deaths in years. This despite two local fire fighters who had pronounced two deaths in separate accidents in the last year. We were never able to get a satisfactory explanation as to why official data had not recorded the deaths, other than there was a lag time while the cause of death was determined and then reported.
In another case an article in the Economist magazine reported the number of French road deaths at twice the rate that were reported in the magazines annual facts data handbook. I wrote to the magazine who had the reporters for each set of data contact me. They were using data from different official sources and couldn’t reconcile them.
Once I attend a guest lecture by a city planning consultant who was proud of how he had used city wide data on pedestrian deaths to try to convince city planners why pedestrian deaths downtown were a problem. This was blatant manipulation of the data to satisfy what his clients wanted to show.
Therefore it certainly seems any pedestrian fatality numbers need to be examined very carefully for accuracy.
From the Governing article:
• The growing use of smartphones, which contribute to distracted driving.
I’m guessing that the bigger issue really is the the growing use of smartphones, but contributing to distracted walking, not driving.
Pedestrian fatalities being on the rise has some merit of scientific accuracy. The proliferation of SUV’s and crossovers has led to more of these incidents. Unlike lower suspension sedans, which are curved and streamlined, if you’re hit by a sedan you’re more likely to get struck well below the knees and get scooped up on the hood to the windshield……A survivable incident.
Suv’s which ride higher off the ground, flatter noses and broader front fascias are more likely to strike you towards the waist on or worse, Run over you.
The best way to avoid being a pedestrian statistic is to avoid being a pedestrian. Translation: get rid of transit and give all that qualify a ride share pass, subsidize the purchase of used cars if used for commuting, give credits for carrying extra riders.
Why don’t they just put those tire shredders up when there’s a red light or a walk sign.
Why not create shoe shredders for when there’s a green light or don’t-walk sign?