I bike commute in SF and haven't seen any traffic enforcement at all since before COVID. I see a moving violation of some sort nearly every single day I bike (usually running red lights or right turn on red where prohibited by big glowing signs).
> While SFPD has recently met its Vision Zero target of issuing half of the traffic citations for the top five causes of collisions, it appears that this is largely a result of fewer citations overall — not an increased commitment to Focus on the Five enforcement, Mandelman’s office said.
A lot of built environments in the US prioritize car throughput and parking over non-car accessibility. And cars have gotten huge relative to their often single-occupant usage. Should we really be "vexed" that this environments selects against pedestrians?
The vexation comes probably from the realization that they know what to do to fix the problem (copy Sweden's Vision Zero), but they are unable to implement the fixes because voters would revolt.
What's vexing about it? The US has no pedestrian protection safety standard for vehicles. That's why the Cybertruck with its sharp and rigid corners is sold in the US but not in places with pedestrian safety standards, like Europe.
The government obviously has no problem with vehicles that have little regard for anyone outside of said vehicle. If dead pedestrians (and cyclists, I might add) were causing any annoyance, frustration, or worry perhaps the federal government would make some sort of regulation on the matter, something like a pedestrian safety standard. The lack of such regulation demonstrates the feds obviously aren't vexed.
An interesting paper that was published earlier in 2024:
> Pedestrian deaths in the US have risen in recent years. Concurrently, US vehicles have increased in size, which may pose a safety risk for pedestrians. In particular, the increased height of vehicle front-ends may present a danger for pedestrians in a crash, as the point of vehicle contact is more likely to occur at the pedestrian’s chest or head. I merge US crash data with a public data set on vehicle dimensions to test for the impact of vehicle height on the likelihood that a struck pedestrian dies. After controlling for crash characteristics, I estimate a 10 cm increase in the vehicle’s front-end height is associated with a 22% increase in fatality risk. I estimate that a cap on front-end vehicle heights of 1.25 m would reduce annual US pedestrian deaths by 509.
> Vehicles with especially tall front ends are most dangerous to pedestrians, but a blunt profile makes medium-height vehicles deadly too, new research from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety shows.
Notwithstanding that, "A New Jersey city achieved 0 traffic deaths in 4 years with quick, high impact ideas":
> Hoboken is a city of about 60,000 people that sits within eyesight of Manhattan just across the Hudson River. Its achievement in stopping deaths on the road comes down to simple measures, according to city officials.
> Hoboken director of transportation and parking, Ryan Sharp, said the city had deployed a number of initiatives to make certain intersections and roads safer — things he called quick implementation, high impact solutions.
> "Things like trying to improve sightlines at corners by doing what we call daylighting," he said. "So that can be installing something as simple as what we call a vertical delineator post or a flexible bollard. These posts get installed within 25 feet of crosswalks, and they physically restrict cars from parking right up against a crosswalk."
> "One thing that you won't see is something called a leading pedestrian interval," Sharp said. "And basically, what that means is we've programmed our traffic signals to give pedestrians a few-second head start when they get into the crosswalk during their pedestrian phase without having to worry about turning vehicles."
Designing roads to accommodate pedestrians! Love to see it!
Yes, it's not "vexing" when you look around. I'm glad there's data out there as proof as well.
Unfortunately, I don't think much will happen on a policy front. US manufacturers are no longer building sedans and are focused on crossovers (which all look and act the same) and trucks. There's even an electric Hummer now which, I don't know, seems to miss the point. No one of anyone political party will go against what the car industry is doing (see all the bailouts across the years) because it's almost as untouchable as Wall Street in terms of looking like you're supporting blue collar jobs programs, union jobs, etc. even if it has a negative effect on society.
In a post earlier in the week, someone pointed out the CAFE regulations. That might be the best route.
The other side of it is designing cities that have safer streets. Here in LA, that means painting a lane and throwing up some plastic pylons vs actual time, money, and effort to reduce the amount of travel on streets and the speeds we can get up to.
I have a theory as to why pedestrian deaths have risen significantly above pre-pandemic levels, and it might be related to a side effect of COVID-19 known as "brain fog."
Many people who have recovered from COVID-19 have reported experiencing cognitive issues, such as difficulty concentrating, memory problems, and mental fatigue. This condition, often referred to as "brain fog," can persist for weeks or even months after the initial infection.
My hypothesis is that this brain fog may be impacting pedestrians' and driver's ability to stay alert and make quick, safe decisions while navigating streets and crosswalks. If a substantial portion of the population is experiencing these cognitive challenges, it could lead to more accidents involving pedestrians.
A lifestyle that includes brain-fog avoiding habits and activities, notably socialization, family and friends, and so on -- anything that provides outsize stimulus to the brain.
Generally, I wager the main cause of the brain-fog (as well as sensory issues) in most who received it from COVID is due to the lock-downs, and coinciding loss of activities that normally would keep the hypothalamus functioning properly. Instead these "creative" activities are no longer present to create and reinforce "good" neural pathways, so they start becoming pruned, so the hypothalamus shrinks, and then come the cascading effects such as reduced neuroplasticity, reduced creativity, reduced "zest" for life -- but these are just the psychological, I've ignored the physical changes that can manifest due to dysregulation in the HPTA axis.
I myself have been able to reverse a lot of this (from COVID, but also from being dealt a bad hand in life) with various experimental peptides that interact with BDNF.
A striking realization I had was that this "brain-fog" can be seen in a lot of people and its causes have become obvious to me. A notable example is senior citizens (60+ y.o.) that are "stuck in their ways" and have various forms of dementia. The easiest trick to reverse such "age-dependent reduction in neurological function" is to take steps toward integrating them into social groups with those who are "mentally young." I have tried this with both my European-born mother and my American-born father. The former succeeded at 73 in reversing age-related mental deficits and physical maladies, but the latter did not.
I posit that this is a cultural issue. European socialization is much more varied in conversation, emotion, expression, subject, and so on. While American socialization is much less in these respects. The other issue is that those socialized in the American way are more likely to be unable to "adapt" to the European way, and so will fail because they do not have the skills necessary to integrate, due to a life of having American socialization engraved in their neural pathways.
Generally, it's my opinion that a large bulk of America's mental, physical, and political maladies are greatly amplified by this lack of novel and consistent stimulus. That is to say nothing about having to commute alone daily (stress and routine boredom), cities that do not cater to exploration and low-cost novelties, a culture of individualism that precludes having deep bonds with others, anti-intellectualism, an over-bearing work culture and cautioned work-place atmosphere, and so on that reduce creativity, reduce neuroplasticity, reduce a zest for life, and create a society filled with effectively robots who have had their neural pathways reinforced so heavily into a very narrow "model of living and being" that escape is simply impossible without sustained exogenous influence.
With that, I have other things to do! -- because I do not foresee any interesting and novel conversation to serendipitously irrupt from my thoughts.
Maybe, but seems more likely that our over dependence on phones and touchscreens in cars. People have more things to distract them rather than focusing on driving.
Pedestrian deaths have been rising long before the pandemic. The lowest point was in 2010. The rise in pedestrian deaths post-2020 follows the same trend as pre-2020 in the US.
Most other developed countries, all of which had COVID-19, have managed to decrease pedestrian deaths in recent years. Just not the US.
I think part of the issue is that the data are so sparse and variable. We are talking less than a thousand drives with an incident vs the tens of millions that take place in that city to no incident. If we go from say 100 to 120 deaths in a year, are we really seeing an increase or are we merely seeing the typical variability for a rare event?
I skimmed through the report, and there doesn't seem to be any data on the drivers involved, only the pedestrians, which can inadvertently lead people to blame the victims (how old were they, were they in the crosswalk, etc.) instead of looking at the other party involved.
Some of the more recent high-profile pedestrian deaths in my area have been associated with the elderly (85 years old, 78 years old). That's definitely an age where night vision deteriorates, reflexes are slower, and coordination is poor. We're now putting them in larger and faster cars with worse visibility. They're also more easily confused with many of the proposed changes such as traffic calming and islands, and politically oppose them.
When we have middle-aged people blinded by poorly designed or aimed headlights, do we really want grandma who can barely see in the dark and panics when she makes a wrong turn, driving her new big "safe" SUV around the traffic circle that she's never seen before, around pedestrians?
> When we have middle-aged people blinded by poorly designed or aimed headlights,
headlights are major problem for me and a few people in my family have started to avoid driving at night because of them, not all of them being middle aged. It seems like the sort of thing to impact people of all ages. I'd love to see more being done to restrict the brightness/height of installed headlights and checks/enforcement of the ones that are installed incorrectly.
Don’t forget the A pilar in cars that keep getting bigger for heavier cars (like say, electric cars or SUVs). A lot can be obscured to a driver by a particularly thick A pilar.
How big are we talking about? I've driven the same car since 2006 (Honda CR-V), and my A pillars block about 10° on the driver side and 6° on the passenger side. I have no idea how that compares to what's currently on the market.
That's enough for the apparent width to be bigger than the apparent width of a pedestrian farther than maybe 8 ft or so from the car but because the pillar is at an angle it only blocks then at a specific height. The parts of the body above and below that height remain visible. The particular slice that is blocked varies as their angular position varies.
It's not surprising to me that most fatal accidents were at night. It was surprising that the rate for black victims was 236% higher than for white people.
Also surprising is that trucks and SUVs together killed close to the same number of people as "passenger cars" (3,100 vs 2,591 in 2022)
Unsurprising if you have noticed the way (I am going with 10-15%, unsubstantiated speculation) of people drive these days:
-Running red lights
-Not stopping at stop signs
-Driving way too fast for the street/road they're on
-Passing when you're not supposed to (single/double yellows)
You can chalk it up to decreased enforcement. Maybe that will help. The tradeoff is potentially more high speed chases and increased police encounters.
Honestly, it's just a lack of decency and common courtesy. It's like people who litter or don't pick up their dog's poop. I don't know how you fix it. It's a symptom of a decaying society, that we cannot count on each other to do the simple things correctly.
I have lived in my city a very long time and there has been a 20+ year issue of pedestrian deaths, especially in the down town area. It's well above the national average, and have had theories as to what is driving the higher post-pandemic numbers -
- more transients, who often walk in the middle of the street with no regard towards their own safety (and I've anecdotally noticed an uptick in "normal" pedestrians just jay-walking without even looking to see if it is safe to cross, no idea what's driving that)
- rise of e-bikes and e-scooters that go fast enough to be driven in the street
- higher rates of driving while intoxicated
It's a weird problem but one that's definitely been noticed in my city.
> Yes, fewer pedestrians died on America's roads last year than in 2022. But was it because we saved their lives, or because fewer people dared to walk, or both?
Deaths of despair are up by similar numbers. Correlation or causation? In this case, I'd argue it's partly causation...
> More than 35,000 pedestrians have died in the past five years, according to the group, and the number of deaths rose nearly 77% between 2010 and 2022.
Between 2007 and 2021, drug overdose deaths have risen 155%, alcohol deaths 87%, suicide 23% [1].
vexation is an emotional word .. so without details, expect some funding or legislative push in the press to follow, in this US Presidential election year.
Here in California, the appetite to automate tracking and enforcement seems unlimited. Maybe look for even more of the same to "fix" this situation?
Vexation is a strange word because we know perfectly well what kills people. Bad driving, bad infrastructure, speed, and larger vehicles.
I'm all for more automated enforcement. It eliminates the need for traffic cops to sit around doing the easy stuff like handing out minor traffic tickets, and allows them to concentrate on things like cars without license plates, injury collision investigations, etc.
If you don't want automated enforcement action, there is a really easy solution: drive lawfully. I've never gotten a speeding ticket, a red light ticket, or anything but a parking ticket in 2 decades of driving. It wasn't hard at all, all I did was not speed or run red lights.
As far as tracking, that ship has sailed. Private companies have networks of license plate readers that they are happy to sell to law enforcement.
on the other hand, a profit-oriented and unfair enforcement system can and will create laws that almost everyone breaks.. then use selective or opportunistic enforcement, and steep fines. There are many precedents for exactly this in many circumstances without modern networks and sensors.
We already have a profit oriented, unfair enforcement system with laws that people routinely break.
At least with automated enforcement it is much harder to get away with selective or biased enforcement without leaving very obvious records around.
I live in a province where speed cameras are not allowed, and the difference is clear when I visit the next province over where speed cameras are allowed.
I live in downtown Dallas and run nearly every day, typically leaving my house at 5 AM, usually for one to four hours. My own observations of the situation from the point of view of a frequent pedestrian:
- Construction has gone haywire. The Dallas Observer has had a running series of articles entitled "Dallas hates pedestrians" for years now because of the number of sidewalks that are chronically closed or simply never existed in the first place. Crews make no effort to create pedestrian corridors and pedestrians are forced into the streets because of it. Sidewalks remain closed for weeks and even months after the work is done. Signs block the sidewalks effectively forever because the crews don't bother to remove them even when work is done.
- Drivers absolutely do not give a shit and pay no attention to pedestrians. I stare these people in the face as I'm approaching on a sidewalk and they do not see me because they're not looking. They only look for oncoming vehicle traffic, not pedestrians. Frankly, I'm probably going to get hit at some point. I've been within inches several times in the past year even when I had the clear right of way crossing in a crosswalk on a green light.
- Highway offramps are in terrible places. Vehicles are being asked to go from highway speeds to downtown speeds in the span of a few hundred meters and they don't because they'd have to be slamming on their brakes to do it. I intentionally avoid roads that are near the highways because of this. Drivers there will be flying off the highway and it won't make any difference if they see you or not.
- Dallas (and presumably a lot of other US cities) has a huge problem with chronically homeless people living in the downtown area. These aren't the "can't afford housing" uptick in homelessness people. These are the randomly wandering into the streets at all hours of the day and night screaming at ghosts because they are clearly severely mentally ill and have been homeless for years if not decades because of it. Little to no services exist to do anything for these people, and as encampments get shut down, unless they're just going to die, they don't really have any choice but to take to the more trafficked streets.
- Presumably because of increased reliance on mobile phone map apps giving directions, increasingly many drivers clearly don't know the area and get lost and confused very easily, often going the wrong way down a one-way street or frequently stopping and starting because they don't know if they're at an intersection they're looking for or if it's the next one. People seem to be increasingly driving through neighborhoods they are not familiar with, including neighborhoods that previously saw virtually no vehicle traffic except for people who actually live there. In addition to apps trying to route you around congestion, this is probably also a symptom of the fact that so much housing has become short-term rentals and even the people occupying housing in the neighborhood don't actually live there or know the neighborhood.
I’m curious if they could break those numbers out to “homeless” vs non-homeless pedestrians. I would expect the homeless pedestrians are more likely to be higher risk takers due to drug or mental impairment, and in the US, the homeless rate appears to be increasing in car dense areas.
On the other hand, wouldn't people that (quite literally) live on the street have a better situational awareness regarding their urban surroundings, opposed to other pedestrians?
People being struck walking alongside a country road require a different solution than someone crossing a lane mid-block at night in an urban area.
If the rise in deaths is mostly people crossing the street away from crosswalks in urban areas, building sidewalks alongside rural roads won't solve much.
The person that you are replying to could have certainly phrased it better if my interpretation is what they were really asking.
What variable are we trying to understand? Probably ones that we can influence through car safety, lighting improvements, crosswalk design, barriers between cars and pedestrians. But if the exploding homeless population are stumbling around drunk, it’s going to obscure the data on the above improvements.
Just one personal anecdote. Someone close to me in my circle, VERY responsible etc, was driving (under 30 mph, in an SUV) when a drunk homeless person just stepped right out into the road. They've been plagued by their involvement for over a year and it's affected their health similar to when a person commits suicide by throwing themselves in front of a train.
It bothers me when the phrasing is "Killed by Drivers".
That truly sucks for your friend. But the phrasing isn't inaccurate, and the source of their trauma is probably that they were responsible for operating the machine that killed someone regardless of their intent or caution, and not the phrasing of around it. They are well aware that they, as a driver, killed someone.
Traffic safety advocates have fought hard for reporters to avoid the passive voice, or using phrasing that avoids the involvement of the driver. Too many people were reported as 'having died in a traffic accident' or have been 'hit by a car'.
It probably bothers the family and friends of dead pedestrians when reckless drivers are reported to have been in an 'accident', or that their car killed someone and not the driver.
Had something similar happen to me before. Was driving down a main street that went through the edge of a college campus. A student on the side of the road, not at an intersection, decided to cross the road not too far in front of me.
It didn't even make sense to cross there, as I had just barely driven under a walkway that crossed above the street specifically for students to cross that street safely too. (I attended that college too. The walkway is more convenient than what they did). Surprised the hell out of me.
I had just barely enough time to realize what was going on and swerve around him. If my reaction time was just slightly less or I did the wrong thing in the moment I would have hit him head-on and either severely injured or killed him. I believe the speed limit was 35mph there, so I was likely going just over that.
That was like 15 years ago at this point, and it still bothers me how close I came to hitting him. I can only imagine how much worse it is for your friend.
Apparently SF is issuing 10x fewer tickets than before COVID and 100x fewer tickets than 10 years ago: https://web.archive.org/web/20240518142347/https://www.sfchr...