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from the what-about-the-road-less-traveled? dept.
Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:
We all became familiar with the idea of "bending a curve" thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. Now it seems another US curve needs bending: that of US traffic fatalities, which have been up strongly and abnormally over the last couple of years. The low-hanging fruit when it comes to changing that might not be in the car as much as around it.
[...] Thanks in large part to in-car safety tech like airbags, antilock brakes, stability control and, more recently, automatic emergency braking, US traffic fatalities have generally been on a long decline since 1970. The 52,000 such deaths recorded 52 years ago shrank to 36,000 in 2019 even as the US population and vehicle miles driven both increased dramatically. But 2020 and 2021 saw the biggest spike in over 50 years to a total of almost 43,000 per year, turning the roadway fatality clock back to 2002. In short, something's not working as well as it did.
"We need regulations related to vehicle design and street design," says Yonah Freemark, senior research associate at the Urban Institute, a nonprofit think tank focused on urban mobility and equity. "Those two play a really important role in how likely people are to get killed in streets, especially pedestrians (and cyclists) that are struck by cars."
Speed cameras are common in several countries outside the US, often using technology that calculates average speed of a given vehicle based on the time stamps when it passes two or more places on the roadway.
In-vehicle safety technologies that protect occupants have only become more prevalent over the last couple of years, so Freemark looks at pedestrian and cyclist fatalities in collisions with cars as the next key area for improvement. Three-quarters of US auto buyers select a light truck that is typically heavier and larger than the sedan or coupe they may have chosen as their previous purchase, a formula for a more brutal impact with someone outside of the vehicle. In the future, many more electric cars will be sold and their well-known weight problem could exacerbate the seriousness of collisions.
[...] That difference plays out when you compare roadway fatality stats outside the US. "Over the last 20 years or so we've seen quite a divergence between other developed countries, like France," Freemark said of a comparison he's focused on. He noted other countries' taxation schemes that disincentivize the purchase of large, heavy vehicles as well as automatic speeding cameras and the presence of far more traffic circles that still befuddle most US drivers.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by PiMuNu on Monday July 25 2022, @03:56PM (4 children)
... implement sidewalks. I am shocked when I visit US at how hard it is to get places on foot.
(Score: 5, Touché) by epitaxial on Monday July 25 2022, @04:25PM (3 children)
A bit difficult when one party sees the government providing public services as "commie" nonsense. I pay taxes to every level of government. I want service in return.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 25 2022, @04:50PM (1 child)
Varies greatly by state. Here in New York State (far from NY City) we have sidewalks in most urban & suburban areas. Further out in the rural areas, the state roads usually have a wide (~2+ meter) strip (paved shoulder) for peds & bikes. There is a solid white line that separates this from the car lane.
Not as fancy as parts of Europe where there are whole separate path systems for walk/bike that include over or underpasses so that car traffic and bike traffic are separate at intersections. But perfectly usable, imo. I just rode my bike on some errands, mostly separated from cars.
There is one reason that property owners resist having sidewalks (pavements in UK usage) added to an older street -- the property owners are required to do maintenance including winter shoveling of the sidewalk. This can be very difficult once the big plows come through and bury the sidewalk...but if you don't do it you get fined.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by driverless on Tuesday July 26 2022, @02:04PM
I used to live in NY state, just north of White Plains, and was shocked at the almost complete absence of sidewalks almost everywhere except town centres. I once had to get maybe 300m down the road from the hotel where I was staying to a place I was working and there was literally no way to get there on foot, I tried walking once and was nearly run down several times with drivers honking at me until I realised that the only way to get there safely was to get a taxi there and back each time. It was seriously the most pedestrian-hostile place I've ever been.
I eventually located a place to live, in a larger town, population 25,000, that had a bus service, but that was by choosing a place specifically because there was a bus route that went through it. One single bus route if I remember correctly. It ran once an hour, and as late as 6 or even 7pm. There were even a few buses that ran on weekends.
The assumption was simply that absolutely everyone drove. There was no provision at all for pedestrians or cyclists, and the people who caught the sole bus that serviced the town were ones too poor to afford a car.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 25 2022, @06:03PM
> I want service in return.
Yes sir. More armored vehicles have been ordered and new weapons are on the way.