Drivers kill pedestrians at the highest speed of almost 30 years

Nearly 36,600 people died on U.S. highways last year, down 2.4 percent from 2017, according to recently released figures from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Deaths per 100 million vehicle miles also fell by 3.4 percent, from 1.17 in 2017 to 1.13 in 2018. NHTSA says it's the lowest mortality rate since 2014.

Everything sounds encouraging, but it's really just good news for us who drive or bike in cars. Everyone else, especially vulnerable road users such as pedestrians and cyclists, is killed at an alarming rate. The number of pedestrians killed – 6,283, an increase of 3.4 per cent from the previous year ̵[ads1]1; was the highest number since 1990.

Cyclists do even worse: 857 were killed in 2018, an increase of 6.3 per cent. Female cyclists are particularly at risk: the number of women killed while riding a bicycle shot up 29.2 percent in 2018, compared to just 3.2 percent for men.

"There is good news that drivers and passengers have seen a decline, but the increase for cyclists and pedestrians shows that a new trend has taken hold where more vulnerable road users are increasingly killed," said Angie Schmitt, former national reporter for StreetsBlog as writes a book on the pedestrian security crisis. "And it won't go away."

The increase in deaths for pedestrians and cyclists, and the overall decline in traffic fatalities, comes at a time when automakers rolls out more safety technology, such as automatic emergency braking, lane assistance and pedestrian detection. New cars now come as standard with cameras, radars and other sensors intended to detect impending collisions or help drivers avoid danger. In some cases, the car will use the brakes to avoid crashes if drivers do not respond in time.

But new security technology does not automatically mean fewer crashes. While car manufacturers are getting better at protecting the people who buy their cars, they still don't do enough to minimize the carnage inflicted by customers. The American Automobile Association (AAA) recently conducted a series of tests using vehicles with automatic emergency braking and pedestrian detection alerts on a closed course with dummy pedestrians. The vehicles hit the stupid pedestrians who crossed the road 60 percent of the time – and this was in daylight at speeds of 20 km / h.

New car technology can be hit or miss during the day, but at night it is almost always hit – and pedestrians are the victims in particular. Of pedestrians killed in 2018, 76 percent were hit after dark, according to NHTSA data. AAA's test of high-tech detection systems found them to be almost completely ineffective at night.

NHTSA said it was investigating ways to reduce the death rate for pedestrians and cyclists, perhaps through changes to its vehicle crash test program. The agency was still trying to highlight the fact that "many" of pedestrians killed by drivers had alcohol in their systems, which ranked some safety advocates. "To the extent they use it to blame victims, I think it's harmful," Schmitt said.

Ken Kolosh, who heads the National Safety Council's statistical reporting and statistical estimation systems, said that this statistic highlights the deficiencies in our infrastructure where pedestrians are not adequately protected from speeding vehicles.

"Many of these people tried to do the right thing by not getting behind the wheel, and may have inadvertently put themselves in a dangerous situation," Kolosh said. "We need to think as a society about how people are forced to walk in unsafe environments, where vehicles and other vulnerable road users are not separately separated or accommodated."

For years, the number of people killed in rural communities surpassed those killed in cities. But it turned around in 2016 as more people moved to cities and the number of vehicle miles traveled. The city's fatalities increased by 34 percent since 2009; deaths in rural areas fell by 15 percent, says NHTSA.

Cities have been slow to respond by making the improvements necessary to separate cars from pedestrians and cyclists, and the federal government has largely been absent, focusing more on rolling back vehicle emission standards than helping cities to to curb traffic fatalities. A bipartisan coalition in Congress just introduced a bill that would make federal funding available to cities for Vision Zero projects aimed at reducing the number of traffic fatalities to zero. But it is unclear what can actually be adopted and signed by the President by the polarized environment.

"We need a much stronger federal commitment to the kinds of facilities that keep cyclists and pedestrians safe: things like sidewalks, [Americans with Disabilities Act] ramps, crosswalk work and bicycle lanes," Schmitt said. "And we need federal regulations that finally address how vehicle design affects pedestrian safety."

The link between vehicle design and pedestrian deaths is quite strong. Unsurprisingly, SUVs continue to destroy on the roads. (1.6 percent decline in SUV occupation deaths in 2018, according to NHTSA), the number of pedestrians killed by these drivers has increased 81 percent over the past decade, according to a report released last year by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

most SUVs: bigger bodywork and taller cars mean pedestrians are more likely to get fatal blows to the head and above Higher clearance means that victims are more likely to be trapped under a fast SUV rather than being pushed on the hood or off to the side.

Speed ​​is also a factor because SUVs have more horsepower than a regular sedan. A recent study by USA Today and Detroit Free Press found that the increasing popularity of SUVs is the alarming rise in pedestrian deaths.

But given Americans' love for their giant SUVs and trucks, it is doubtful that reports of increased pedestrian deaths will dampen the desire for larger vehicle types. distraction is responsible for fewer deaths in 2018, there is still a problem NHTSA says the number of fatalities in crash-related crashes was 2,841, or 7.8 percent of total fatalities in 2018. This is a 12.4 percent decline from 3,242 in 2017.

"We should continue to be concerned about distraction," Kolosh said. "It's not just cell phones. These are all technologies. We are quite used to seeing people text in red light. ”

Smartphone manufacturers have introduced a number of new features designed to minimize driver usage, but there is no silver bullet. "Technology made us solve this problem, and technology can help us get out of this problem to some degree," Kolosh said. "But it will come to the individual."