Pedestrian accidents are increasing nationwide, according to USA Today, and experts are uncertain of the reason. Pedestrian accidents went up 4.2% in 2010 from the year before. The number pedestrians injured in all car accidents increased 19%. The four years prior, pedestrian accidents had decreased. From 2000 to 2009 all pedestrian accidents were down 14%.
“Quite frankly, I don’t know why they went up,” said researcher James Hedlund. “Nobody knows. As far as I can tell, nobody has studied the issue. The data (are) too new.”
Many suggestions have been made, from an increase in speed limits to low-income residents and immigrants moving to urban areas, and even to pedestrians being distracted by cell phones.
“Nobody has good data,” says Richard Wener, professor from the Polytechnic Institute of New York University. “But there is, by now, a number of studies that indicate pedestrian distraction is real. It’s very much like driving a car and being on a cell phone. You’re much more likely to miss something around you.”
Have you or a loved one been injured in a pedestrian accident?
Wooten, Kimbrough & Normand, P.A.—Orlando personal injury attorneys.
2 Comments
Richard N. (Rick) Shapiro
Pedestrian accidents have increased in Virginia as well. I agree that before localities can improve safety the cause of these car accidents needs to be pin pointed.
Dennis Burgess
The answer's a simple one, Ed- and if you've ever driven down Colonial, John Young, OBT, Kirkman, Hiawassee (to name a few), you already know it yourself. Folks walk out in the road because they CAN walk out in the road. It's a clear-cut issue of pedestrians feeling (dare I say it?) entitled to the street and choosing to make a vehicle stop for them- or so they hope.
At my URL above, you'll see where today's post will be the 10th of its kind in short order- where I call out the local law enforcement community for allowing this to become a culture and the way things are expected to be. Shame on them. They should always pray that the pedestrian they're called to scrape off the street one night isn't one they watched cross that street between cars earlier in the day.
Shame on MetroPlan Orlando, the Orlando Sentinel and other apologists who reside in the camp of the lazy law-breaking jaywalkers- some of whom make things a family affair and push their children in strollers out into traffic. Shame on those who look to always blame the motorist to whom's right-of-way the dead pedestrians failed to yield. It's bad enough their conscience will replay the scenes forever- there's no need for additional harm.
Many who've offered solutions to our "deadly sidewalks" issue have talked of adding more sidewalks, adding traffic lights, etc., yet not a single studier has dared address the elephant in the room: most that die are minorities, and folks fear that enforcing any of our wacky pedestrian laws will label them as racists.
Others simply want to blame anyone and anything except those truly liable. "Not enough sidewalks here!"...but in nearly every case of pedestrian death you find, sidewalks exist and folks have elected not to use them. I believe one study (perhaps MetroPlan's own) said that 20% of pedestrian deaths occur within 100 feet of (but not IN) quality crosswalks.
"Add more lights!"...Similar to above- the number of lights we could add would never make any difference when folks choose not to obey the law- and law enforcement folks chooe to let them do so.
Here's an assignment for you: of all the little stories about fatalities as they come, and all the news stories from the Sentinel and elsewhere on the subject, look for and notice how many of them address the topic of personal responsibility and how pedestrians should be on the sidewalks.
I could tell you how many I've seen, but that'd spoil your assignment.
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