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by redwall_hp
36 days ago
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Most pedestrian deaths aren't from speeding. They occur on high traffic roads where the posted limits are beyond what will most certainly be lethal (45mph+). And growing vehicle mass pushes lower speeds into the lethal range, anyway. (Someone's Yukon is going to kill pedestrians at much lower speeds than a Civic.) Alcohol is involved nearly half the time as well...but the driver is intoxicated only 18% of the time. Usually it's drunk pedestrians stumbling into the road. https://www.cdc.gov/pedestrian-bike-safety/about/pedestrian-... Pedestrian fatalities are largely not a vehicle speed issue so much as a street design issue. Cities should be planned so nobody is ever walking near higher speed arterial roads, with crosswalks at controlled intersections, foot bridges over long/wide streets, and separated sidewalks. Then areas that need lower speeds (residential areas, downtown areas with street parking) should use narrower designs. In contrast, the city I live in is primarily built around a handful of four lane streets that all of the businesses are along, with no crossings for miles and places where sidewalks randomly disappear. So you'll see pedestrians standing in the middle of a lane, waiting for a gap to run across the next two lanes. It's wildly dangerous, but the problem has nothing to do with people exceeding the speed limit...and even lowering it would achieve nothing. |
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