I've seen one or two pedestrian crossings which included fast-reacting automatic bollards, similar to ones in [1].
They took maybe 4-5s to raise and lower, and afaik were highly effective at protecting the users. The initial capital costs, maintenance, and throughput disruption if they fail-up make them impractical as a general solution, at least for the time being.
I'm definitely not blaming the victims here. Certainly the fault lies with the drivers who were operating their vehicle recklessly and without regard for human life, I think a charge of negligent homicide or manslaughter is warranted in cases such as this and I think life in prison is likely not too harsh of a sentence. At worst Reisse is "guilty" of nothing other than inattention, which certainly nobody deserves death for.
That said, regardless of the assignment of culpability and wrongdoing I think it is fundamentally important for pedestrians (namely: all people) to understand that it is with in their power to dramatically reduce their risk of injury by developing defensive habits. At the end of the day it doesn't matter if you died noble and innocent, dead is dead.
By the same token, it's not ok to blame children for sexual abuse, but it is smart to educate them about the dangers and to empower them with the skills to be able to avoid it.
[1] http://www.edsuk.com/item.php?id=260