More pedestrians and bicyclists are being killed on U.S. streets than at any time in the past 45 years
– over 1,000 bicyclists and 7,500 pedestrians in 2022 alone.
Vehicle size is a big part of this problem.
A recent paper by urban economist Justin Tyndall found that increasing the front-end height of a vehicle by roughly 4 inches (10 centimeters) increases the chance of a pedestrian fatality by 22%.
The risk increases by 31% for female pedestrians or those over 65 years, and by 81% for children.
It’s hard to argue with physics, so there is a certain logic in blaming cars for rising traffic deaths.
In fact, if a bicyclist is hit by a pickup truck instead of a car, Tyndall suggests that they are 291% more likely to die.
Yet automakers have long asserted that if everyone simply followed the rules of the road, nobody would die. Vehicle size is irrelevant to that assertion.
My discipline, traffic engineering, acts similarly.
We underestimate our role in perpetuating bad outcomes, as well as the role that better engineering can play in designing safer communities and streets.
https://theconversation.com/traffic-engineers-build-roads-that-invite-crashes-because-they-rely-on-outdated-research-and-faulty-data-223710
Chuck Darwin /
npub189…vstm6
2024-06-23 16:36:55
Author Public Key
npub189h30c785w27s474gju2947zgnmrrc695elyk5lguewsl232salqdvstm6Published at
2024-06-23 16:36:55Event JSON
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