from Hacker News

U.S. pedestrian deaths reach a 40-year high

by Freddie111 on 6/27/23, 8:21 AM with 92 comments

• by trilbyglens on 6/27/23, 10:05 AM

  Every country has its own flavor of bad driving. I live in the Czech republic and people here are very aggressive and inconsiderate drivers. However they are not sloppy or inattentive. The roads here are far too complex and busy to even look at a phone for more than a second or two. By contrast, driving in the us is super duper low stress. Roads are super wide and designed to be ultra comfortable for cars and drivers. As a result people are not alert while driving I think.

  Another factor is that EVERYONE drives in the us. It doesn't matter if you like it, or are comfortable with it, or even if you're good at it. You HAVE to drive. Over here maybe only 50% of driving age people even have licenses. People who don't like driving don't have to since we have great public transportation.

  The most sloppy driving I've ever seen is in the us. People weaving in and out of their lane staring at a phone, people driving into ditches, driving through building walls in parking lots you name it. The reality is that many people just should not be driving a car but are forced to by abysmal american infrastructure and even worse city planning.

• by sien on 6/27/23, 9:51 AM

  Ars has a good article on this :

  https://arstechnica.com/cars/2023/06/pedestrian-deaths-rose-...

  Check the graph on how there was a big increase in particular states.

  Source report can be downloaded at :

  https://www.ghsa.org/resources/Pedestrians23

  Check page 21 for the report on day vs night deaths.

  Does anyone have good data on other countries? I've looked at Australia and there is no great pedestrian death increase. So it's unlikely to be mobile phones driving the increase.

  Go here for the Australian dashboard.

  https://www.bitre.gov.au/publications/ongoing/road_deaths_au...

• by NoNameHaveI on 6/27/23, 10:47 AM

  This really hits home for me. I live in Orlando, Florida and work is a scant 1.7 miles away. However, I do not dare drive or walk to work. Why? Pedestrian fatalities. This is a real shame not only because of pollution, and missed opportunity for exercise, but often because the traffic is so bad, it would only take marginally more time to walk/bike than drive. I really wish road engineers would ensure ALL roads (sans expressways/interstates) have protected bike/ped zones. Not just a stripe on the pavement that can be easily driven across by a distracted driver. But actual raised protection, like a median or curb.

• by asimpleusecase on 6/27/23, 10:48 AM

  Not to blame the victims but recently I’ve noticed pedestrians doing a lot of dumb stuff that is not helping. In the past week I’ve had 5 different people crossing multiple lanes of traffic dressed in all dark colours in areas with poor or no street lighting at night. A couple of people I would likely have hit but I caught thier silhouette against car tail lights ahead of me. Do get me stated on people stepping out into traffic at crossing when cars have a green light. People looking at phones and stepping into traffic with I guess the idea that if they don’t look at you you will avoid them. I do think the is distracted walking as well as distracted driving.

• by everdrive on 6/27/23, 11:50 AM

  Articles such as this are not wrong to point out SUVs, but I think they miss two other important issues:

  - Increased driver distraction due to smartphones and in-car touch screens.

  - Decreased driver visibility due to improved rollover protection. (Ironically, this may largely be the blame of SUVs as well, since passenger cars are much harder to roll over)

  I can’t go through a single day without seeing some driver looking down at their phone. I honestly wager I could drive better drunk than some drivers can manage when distracted by their phones.

• by paulryanrogers on 6/27/23, 1:17 PM

  At my license renewal I clearly failed the vision test yet they passed me anyway. When I finally got to the eye doctor they said I really should not be driving until getting corrective lenses. Thankfully I was able to minimize driving until getting a cheap pair of glasses.

  In the US the only way to legally kill on multiple occasions is by vehicle accident. Yet the system is afraid of taking away ones 'right' to drive as it degrades quality of life so much. You can report someone you know is unsafe, though in some states they'll be notified who reported them, causing a chilling effect.

• by merek on 6/27/23, 11:53 AM

  For those interested in urban planning, including contrasts between the US and places that do it well, I highly recommend the Not Just Bikes youtube channel.

  The intro video details a short walk in Houston, which is pretty alarming: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxykI30fS54

• by joker_minmax on 6/27/23, 3:39 PM

  The drivers need to put the cell phone down, of course - I was almost run over by an Amazon Prime truck when the driver was on a phone - but the pedestrians need to put the phone down too. Six years ago I was using Google maps to find my way around as a pedestrian, and I walked directly into a pole. Where I live the local news recently did a special on distracted pedestrians walking into things. I know a lot of people like to use headphones to walk around and listen to music, but I also think your ears are a MUST HAVE if you're walking anywhere there could be cars. It's the driver's responsibility to stop, but I live in an area with a lot of blind hills, and you need to hear the car before it crests if you're in the road.

• by redwood on 6/27/23, 10:41 AM

  Next thing you know, akin to biking, people will be recommending you walk with a helmet

• by dghughes on 6/27/23, 10:37 AM

  Sunrise and sunset are bad times for car crashes especially in cities where streets line up with the sun.

  In my town there is one street that in winter with a wet salty road is like a mirror. The sun at a certain time during a certain time of year plus the "salt mirror" makes it practically impossible to see.

• by jansan on 6/27/23, 10:14 AM

  How much does a driver's license cost in the US? What do you have to do in order to get one?

  Here in Germany, my son has to sit through 14 theory lessons and then pass a theoretical test (with questions out of a pool of 1400 questions). Then he needs 12 mandatory driving lessons (night, highway, country road) and probably 8 more lessons to get him to the rquired level to pass the driving test. This will set me back approx 3000€ ($3000).

  IMO the requirements for a drivers license in Germany are a bit too strikt, but what I heard from my brother, who got his drivers license in Minnesota during a high school exchange year, the requirements in the US are really, really low. Maybe we can agree on an international standard somewhere in the middle?

• by difosfor on 6/27/23, 11:31 AM

  City roads should basically not be built for cars but for pedestrians, cyclists, public transportation and only then: cars.

  Interestingly narrowing roads also helps cars slow down naturally. Build some separate bike lanes while you're at it.

• by trashface on 6/27/23, 10:35 AM

  Already discussed to death literally yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36480122

  Am I living in groundhog day?

• by johnea on 6/27/23, 4:19 PM

  Drivers in the US are VERY inattentive. It's reacched the point where operating the vehicle has come to be seen as just a distraction from playing w/ a cell phone.

  Sadly, pedestrians are ALSO VERY inattentive. My closest encounter to a pedestrian accident was when a pedestrian stepped in front of my car, mid-bloc, on a very dark night, wearing all black, and staring at his phone.

  The first thing I saw in the dark was his face, lit by the glow of his phone...

• by ALittleLight on 6/27/23, 9:45 AM

  "Pedestrian deaths have been climbing since 2010 because of unsafe infrastructure and the prevalence of SUVs, which tend to be more deadly for pedestrians than smaller cars, according to Martin"

  The report itself shows there's an increase in pedestrian fatalities in slightly fewer than half of states and the increase comes from deaths at night and not in the daytime. How would an increase in SUVs (which is a national trend) cause this result?

• by penjelly on 6/27/23, 10:34 AM

  in canada drivers are usually respectful/good but theres still an attitude that drivers own the road and pedestrians are an afterthought. Theyll pull into intersections blocking the cross walk, or begin a left turn very early or blindly while people are crossing. stuff like that reminds you that the city was built for cars and not pedestrians, and i think thats the systemic thing that should change to prevent deaths

• by pimpampum on 6/27/23, 9:43 AM

  All those Tesla are making a dent.

• by ShadowBanThis01 on 6/27/23, 10:00 AM

  And until states make texting while driving a DUI-level offense, with the same penalties, it's not going to get better.

  There's no excuse for it. And this superficial, useless article doesn't discuss it at all. Instead, it regurgitates pablum about the same regressive do-nothing "solution" known as "traffic calming." That's just ruining our streets instead of attacking the real problem.

• by hardware2win on 6/27/23, 9:56 AM

  Offtop:

  Cars are pretty sad topic

  It is sad how many good safety and driving easiness features modern cars have, yet majority of people do not have access to them due to price

  It is also crazy how unreliable cars actually are. 20 years old car means some surprise every 3rd or 4th drive