U.S. Pedestrian Deaths Soar In ‘Complete Failure’ As States Prioritize Automobile Velocity, Visitors Move

Pedestrian traffic-safety measures have been “a complete failure” in keeping with an advocacy group’s new report that discovered U.S. pedestrian fatalities jumped 45% during the last decade as planners prioritized automobile pace and visitors circulate over the lives of these on foot. 

The report, “Harmful by Design 2021,” compiled by the city planning nonprofit Sensible Development America, discovered that from 2010 to 2019, almost each state within the U.S. grew extra harmful for pedestrians than the 12 months prior, despite the fact that general visitors fatalities trended downward. It additionally discovered alarming disparities in deaths based mostly on the victims’ location, age and race.

“Our present strategy to addressing the rising variety of individuals struck and killed whereas strolling has been a complete failure,” says the report, launched on Wednesday. It urges transportation planners to put higher precedence on the protection of individuals not behind the wheel.

Black individuals had been discovered to have been struck and killed by drivers at an 82% greater charge than white non-Hispanic individuals through the years 2010 to 2019. The fatality charge within the lowest-income neighborhoods was almost twice that of middle-income neighborhoods. 

“Low-income communities are considerably much less prone to have sidewalks, marked crosswalks, and road design to assist safer, slower speeds,” the report states. “It’s seemingly that most of the individuals strolling in these lower-income census tracts are additionally lower-income themselves.” Individuals in lower-income communities are much less prone to have vehicles, the report provides.

“We urgently want to vary the best way we design and construct roads to prioritize security, not pace, as we at the moment do,” Beth Osborne, transportation director for Sensible Development America, stated in an announcement. “The obsession with preserving visitors transferring and avoiding delay in any respect prices in hopes of saving drivers mere seconds creates the very risks highlighted on this report.”

Florida was by far essentially the most lethal state for pedestrians, in keeping with the report, and 7 of the nation’s 10 most harmful metropolitan areas had been within the Sunshine State.

Florida’s Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford metro space ranked first in a calculation that thought-about deaths, inhabitants and the quantity of people that stroll to work. The Orlando space has topped the planning group’s most-dangerous chart in three of 4 earlier editions of the report that stretch again to 2009.

Like Florida, the 9 different states within the High 10 are alongside the southern continental U.S. Alabama and New Mexico are second and third. 

Of the 20 most harmful metro areas, 17 had been in Southern states. Florida’s Orlando space was adopted by Bakersfield, California. Memphis, Tennessee shared third place with Florida’s Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville space.

“Eighty-four of the 100 largest metropolitan areas grew extra harmful for individuals strolling for the reason that earlier version of Harmful by Design,” the report states.

Florida Transportation Secretary Kevin J. Thibault dismissed the report in an announcement to HuffPost, saying its evaluation of choose information factors “leads to an inaccurate portrayal.”

“The report compares states and metropolitan areas throughout the nation, however doesn’t take into consideration vital geographic and demographic nuances, leading to a one measurement suits all methodology for the evaluation,” Thibault stated.

Thibault stated Florida’s pedestrian and bicycle security program has obtained excessive reward from the Nationwide Freeway Visitors Security Administration. NHTSA didn’t instantly reply to HuffPost’s request for remark. 

The report affords really useful adjustments in street designs, pace limits and pedestrian crosswalks as methods to cut back deaths. These embody narrowing visitors lanes, which has been discovered to lower pace, and eliminating high-speed extensive turns for sharp-angle turns as an alternative.

Decrease automobile pace dramatically reduces the possibility of a pedestrian dying if hit by a automobile. A pedestrian struck by a 40 mph automobile has an 85% likelihood of dying, in contrast with a forty five% likelihood at 30 mph and 5% at 20 mph, in keeping with Nationwide Visitors Security Board information cited within the report.