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The Today Show Completely Botched Its Coverage of America’s Pedestrian Safety Crisis

By Angie Schmitt, Streets Blog

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A new report from the Governors Highway Safety Association estimates that nationwide, there were nearly 6,000 pedestrian deaths in 2016. That’s a 25 percent increase since 2010 and the highest number in two decades.

That was enough to get news outlets like the Today Show to pay attention to pedestrian safety for once. But the Today segment was a victim-blaming disaster, writes Joseph Cutrufo at Mobilizing the Region:

If you ask the Today Show, it’s distracted pedestrians who are to blame, a point they illustrated by showing a video clip of a person being struck by a driver while standing on the sidewalk. The whole segment seems utterly ridiculous, but then again, in a country where more than 90 percent of households own at least one vehicle and more than three-quarters of commuters drive to work, maybe the Today Show’s audience is actually buying it.
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We’ll never make progress on pedestrian fatalities if so many streets look like the highway where Sanders stands at the beginning of his report. We need streets where motor vehicles travel at non-lethal speeds and people can cross without taking their lives in their hands.

We should be asking why the United States is doing so much worse than other nations on traffic safety:
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In the United Kingdom, not only are the streets much safer than in America, but the pedestrian death rate is falling even faster than the overall traffic fatality rate. In other words, British streets are getting safer for walking and driving, but especially for walking.

So instead of another segment blaming people on foot for their own deaths, how about a trip to the UK to investigate how they made a transportation system that’s so much safer than ours?
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http://usa.streetsblog.org/2017/03/31/the-today-show-completely-botched-its-coverage-of-americas-pedestrian-safety-crisis/
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Why America’s roads are so much more dangerous than Europe's

by Norman Garrick, Carol Atkinson-Palombo, and Hamed Ahangari, Vox

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Even before that spike upward, per capital traffic fatalities in the US were already the highest in the industrialized world. No other developed country tolerates the level of carnage on their roads that we do. This national failure has been overlooked for far too long. Studying short-term variations in our safety record is important, but it can also distract us from investigating the forces contributing to our horrendous safety record compared to our peers.
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In other words, since 1970 we have gone from leading the pack in traffic safety to being at the rear of that pack.
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[B'Spokes: And they even get a little analytical as to why America road fatalities are so high.]

https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2016/11/30/13784520/roads-deaths-increase-safety-traffic-us
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Large Vehicle Urban Driving Safety Program

[B' Spokes: I found several aspects of this Vision Zero Large Vehicle safety video interesting.:
1) It was NOT done by the MVA but by San Francisco's MTA and their contractors are required to watch the video.
2) It shows a lot of bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure you don't see here.
3) It explains why a lot of bike/ped enhancements work as well as what to do when driving and parking around them. Imagine that, a official source that tells trucks not to park in bike lanes. But be real if people are not told how to use something new are they supposed to know? And yes I well insult a lot of road engineers, these new designs are all that obvious to a car centric audience (most of the people driving.)

I will strongly assert that for many people roads are for cars to go fast on and there needs to be a lot of education that goes out to explain why slowing down is a good thing and how to share road space with cyclists and pedestrians. This video is a great start, now to see stuff like this happen in Maryland.]

Main page: https://www.sfmta.com/projects-planning/projects/large-vehicle-urban-driving-safety-program
Video: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDc-thAeHe1idBKvsZCoOKQ
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OUTDATED HEADLIGHTS PUT DRIVERS & PEDS AT RISK

-> USA Today reports about 2,500 pedestrians are killed at night every year crossing the road, in many cases because drivers can't see them because their headlights don't shine brightly enough. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety concluded last year, that two-thirds of lighting packages available on 21 small SUV models deliver “poor” performance. In addition, 10 mid-size cars' and 7 pickup truck headlight systems were deemed as poor. Outdated federal rules have blocked automakers from introducing adaptive beam headlamps that automatically adjust to oncoming traffic to reduce glare and help drivers see better, even though the technology is legal and available in Europe and Japan. At the same time, sleek styling and manufacturing mistakes on currently available systems has led to poor performance on the road, including excessive glare and insufficient light on the pavement. https://usat.ly/2qE5iCP

from CenterLines, the e-newsletter of the National Center for Bicycling & Walking.
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The myth of the beleaguered Boston driver

By Dante Ramos, Boston Globe

IF YOU’RE DRIVING in a crowded city, it’s your job not to hit anybody. Not cyclists, not pedestrians, not even pedestrians wearing headphones.
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The problem isn’t that Walsh thinks pedestrians and cyclists should pay attention to their surroundings. (Shouldn’t everybody?) It’s that, in his comments, the mayor seemed to accept the myth of the beleaguered Boston driver who’s at the mercy of unpredictable bikers and walkers.

When a car hits a bike in the Netherlands and some other countries, laws generally presume that the person driving the two- or three-ton metal box is responsible. Here in Boston, we’ve all internalized the idea that driving is how human beings naturally get around, and that everything else in city life — our transportation plans, our development rules, our circadian rhythms — must bend to accommodate it.
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In practice, though, the city’s bicycle lanes are regularly blocked by delivery trucks, passenger vehicles, and even police cars. All too often, city government still sends this message: Real people use cars; all that other stuff — the bike lanes, the climate planning, the official paeans to transit-oriented development — is OK only if doesn’t bother drivers.
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It’s easy to blame crazy cyclists or headphoned jaywalkers for getting hit by cars, but the victims are often children and elderly people. Calls for personal responsibility also mask the underlying issue: Many streets and intersections in Boston aren’t properly designed for the mix of people using them.
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The other possibility is that, when throngs of transit commuters pour out of South Station every morning and jaywalk across the street, they’re sending a message of their own: We’re focusing too closely on the needs of motor vehicles, and not enough on all the people around them.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2017/05/20/the-myth-beleaguered-boston-driver/LEpqqu6VVeVUDnh2gybNzJ/story.html
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How Sweden Has Redesigned Streets To Route Around Bad Human Behavior

BY CHARLIE SORREL, Fast Company

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Belin is one of the creators of Vision Zero, a Swedish policy instigated in 1997 that has the aim of eliminating road deaths. But unlike almost every other scheme to make roads safer, Vision doesn’t try to blame the victim or the perpetrator. Instead, it tries to design the system itself to be safer. And it’s working. Since its beginning, Vision Zero has more than halved road deaths, to below three fatalities per 100,000. Compare that to the U.S., where the figure is 11.6 per 100,000.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/3066435/how-sweden-has-redesigned-streets-to-route-around-bad-human-behavior
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Side guards: New push to make safety devices on trucks mandatory

B' Spokes: It amazes me that something that is standard in Europe, saves lives and improves gas mileage can't get done here. Even more (not talked about in the video), truck side guards can save pedestrian and cyclists lives as well as they help prevent "fall under rear wheel" deaths. It is outrageous that the trucking industry can remain negligent so long on this issue.

http://www.today.com/video/side-guards-new-push-to-make-safety-devices-on-trucks-mandatory-871637059838
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We are the bicycle lobby. We are coming for your parking.

by Comrade Rosovvy, City Pages

[B' Spokes: A bit tongue and cheek but has a point.]

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Where once you could park eight feet in front of a business to purchase a hanging plant, we sons and daughters of the morning star will force you to walk one additional city block on sidewalks like a poor person. Your spirit will be crushed and your very feet will cry out for mercy.
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http://www.citypages.com/arts/we-are-the-bicycle-lobby-we-are-coming-for-your-parking/422843924
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- COUNTDOWN PEDESTRIAN SIGNALS WITH AND WITHOUT THE FLASHING HAND FIELD STUDY

(http://bit.ly/2jw8c9X): This study found statistically significant decreases in pedestrians who were still in the crosswalk when cross traffic was released at three of the four sites when the Flashing Don’t Walk was removed from the clearance phase. An increase in the number of pedestrians running was detected at some of the sites during the Countdown Pedestrian Signal alone condition. Removing the FDW signal from the CPS could result in an increase in the number of pedestrians who reach the opposite side of the crosswalk without interfering with cross traffic.

from CenterLines, the e-newsletter of the National Center for Bicycling & Walking.

[B' Spokes: So basically the flashing (don't walk) hand that comes on too early for most pepole (so most ignore it) doesn't work as well as a simple count down.]
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PED SAFETY ENFORCEMENT OPERATIONS GUIDE

-> The “Pedestrian Safety Enforcement Operations: A How-To Guide“ (http://1.usa.gov/1GYHe2B) provides tips and guidance on how States and communities can effectively deploy pedestrian safety enforcement operations to reduce pedestrian injuries and fatalities. It includes a summary of promising practices, guidance on planning and implementing an operation, a discussion of several considerations and variations, recommendations regarding the evaluation of pedestrian safety programs, and a series of case studies. The guide also contains an Appendix with sample forms and other useful information.

from CenterLines, the e-newsletter of the National Center for Bicycling & Walking.
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