Drivers are killing pedestrians at highest rate in almost 30 years | Hacker News Reader

Drivers are killing pedestrians at highest rate in almost 30 years

theverge.com

50 pointsapplecrazy71 comments

This is a sensational story based off of a shallow if not deliberate misreading of statistics. They point to an increase in raw number of deaths and say that the rate is increasing - completely leaving out population adjustments like density and raw numbers increasing. The only rate discussion is in a graph that shows % inside vehicle fatalities vs % outside vehicle fatalities. With cars becoming safer of course the % of outside vehicle fatalities will rise since the human body isn't becoming more resilient to car crashes at the same rate.

Also they didn't do any looking into the circumstances of death, as mentioned by throwGuardian - I suspect cell phone related incidents are on the rise.

Guess you missed the ones where cities are higher impacted and rural areas went down and that most of these are caused by SUVs because drivers of SUVs are terrible people and have a lead foot leading to more head injuries because of the height of their vehicle. It's pretty clear that the people at highest risk are pedestrians in cities that allow SUVs. The solution should be to ban SUVs in cities, since they are responsible for most of the deaths would cause a dramatic drop in pedestrians dying.

edit: oh and a ton of people hit had alcohol in their system.

I could of sworn there was an article here not that long ago explaining that the reason more people die after being hit be vehicles now as opposed to living after being hit is that more vehicles are SUVs and they just kill you on impact instead of potentially rolling over the top.

Less crude than banning SUVs would be requiring vehicles to pass pedestrian safety standards in addition to vehicle occupant safety standards in a crash.

IIRC in the US we only really test safety for people inside the car, not outside.

Well yeah but that would require giving up SUVs and trucks altogether and bring calls of socialism because Europe already does that.

> The solution should be to ban SUVs in cities

Far more effective would be to ban cities, or pedestrians.

Even car drivers are pedestrians at some point, but in a city, it's quite easy to be a pedestrian and never be a car driver.

So more practical than banning pedestrians would be banning privately driven cars. Commercial trucks, emergency vehicles and taxi's/Uber/Lyft with appropriate driver standards/training requirements could still be allowed on roads.

Drivers that really want a private car could keep them parked outside of the city center, or maybe they could pay for the same driver training/certification of commercial drivers - and all drivers should be held to very high standards, no more "I didn't see him in the cross walk!" excuse when a driver hits a pedestrian.

I don't make enough money to "own" a car. It's dangerous, stressful, expensive. The car becomes a single point of failure that can turn my whole life upside down if it ever fails, which cars often do at the price range I can afford. Banning pedestrians would basically ban poor people from going outside.

Some of the factors for this increase seem to be:

  - Explosion in the sales of Crossovers/SUVs/Trucks
  - Smartphone usage among pedestrians
  - More people living in cities
  - More people using bike-shares & scooters
  - Deterioration of public transit resulting in more drivers
  - Increase in ride sharing resulting in more drivers

The crossover/SUV/Truck sales is the most interesting to me. I wonder if that will self-perpetuate, since the presence of larger vehicles seem to make other drivers feel less safe, which make them want larger vehicles, which makes the remaining sedan owners feel less safe....

The larger vehicles will persist until the next time oil is over $100/barrel and drivers have to contemplate the ongoing cost of operating their SUVs. Same thing happened in mid-to-late 2000s IIRC.

I fear the answer is yes.

I have absolutely failed to convince anybody that they don't need an SUV. Doesn't matter. They want an SUV. Not a hatchback of same practicality but better turning/braking; not a Minivan of comparable bulk and price but hugely increased practicality (for a large-family north-american suburb lifestyle; everything is relative:) - a large heavy SUV with tiny brakes is what they want.

(And when I say "They", that includes my wife and now we have one too :-< )

I have tried to convince with equation of "chance of being in accident multiplied by chance of dying in an accident", with the idea that you can work on either of the variables to decrease the total; and indicated that maaaybe in SUV you are safer if you crash, but with a smaller more nimble better visibility car you are less likely to crash. This makes no progress - most people's attitude is "When I crash", not "If I crash".

> smaller more nimble better visibility car

Small cars don’t necessarily have better visibility. I have far better visibility in my Q7 than I did in my Audi A3.

And a smaller car doesn’t do much to help against an 18 wheeler or UPS truck. If I am in a crash in a Civic, I am more likely to die than a crash in a Jeep Cherokee

Smaller cars are not safer, because physics.

An SUV built after 2012 (that’s when mandatory stability control arrived) is safer than a car. The idea that being nimble keeps you safer is silly. Most accidents don’t give you enough notice before they’re about to happen. Also, I would argue my turbo Q7 is far more nimble than the Prius.

The Hyundai Accent is the most dangerous car to be in, based on fatality rates. The Jeep Cherokee has zero fatalities from 2012-2015. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimgorzelany/2017/07/06/deathtr...

> - Smartphone usage among pedestrians

and drivers

> The crossover/SUV/Truck sales is the most interesting to me. I wonder if that will self-perpetuate, since the presence of larger vehicles seem to make other drivers feel less safe, which make them want larger vehicles, which makes the remaining sedan owners feel less safe....

It's not just the mass of the vehicle too. Here in southern California it definitely seems like there's an arms race of headlight brightness where the victims are smaller/lower cars, especially those without dimming mirrors. I really wish the authorities (or maybe insurance) started looking into headlight brightness/angling.

Smartphone usage among drivers is a far bigger cause of deaths than smartphone usage among pedestrians.

Recently, a local kid got hit by an angry driver. The kid was on a sidewalk, and the driver was swerving (up onto the sidewalk) to get around a slower car.

I really think that the test to get a license should include some kind of screen for impatience, irritability, and aggression. I imagine we could come up with a reasonable way of screening out people who are prone to such behavior.

I think that such a blatant and intentional disregard for safety such as what you described should probably immediately disqualify someone from a license for at least five years, even if they killed no one. Driving is a privilege, not a right.

I agree completely. The FAA can and does suspend pilot licenses for far less.

I can't even fathom the level of stupidity and rage that went into such a maneuver. Up onto the sidewalk?!

One idea would be to start making people more aware of the penalties for such maneuvers and aggressively prosecuting them. Such a thing would surely qualify as reckless operation, which can be a felony conviction in some jurisdictions even if no one was harmed.

> I really think that the test to get a license should include some kind of screen for impatience, irritability, and aggression.

Isn't that what the process of going to the DMV is? A test of your patience and mental fortitude? I kid, but I really dislike this idea. It seems nearly impossible to objectively measure, and too prone to manipulation. I fear that it would end up being used as some sort of a modern day poll tax.

A behavior/personality test for driving licenses? What could possibly go wrong with that? Being impatient doesn’t mean you are more likely to commit a crime. Perhaps increase the penalties for reckless driving. Personality tests get into some dangerous territory. Besides doing a personality test at scale is hard to do with any accuracy. You simply answer the questions in a “correct” way. And gave to face psych evaluations would be impossible to do at the scale of the DMV. Where are you going to find the mental health professionals to staff such an initiative? And normal clerks couldn’t do the evaluation because they wouldn’t have the professional training or licensure to conduct screenings. If they did have those creds, they wouldn’t be working at a DMV.

In Seattle, as a pedestrian I have problems with drivers only looking in the direction of oncoming traffic to make a turn. That includes not looking in front of them and not looking in the direction they are turning.

Its hard to imagine approaching an intersection, and at no point during the approach and turn, not looking forward or in the direction of the turn, yet I encounter this every day.

We are collectively spending a lot of resources pursuing self-driving, when we should be spending those resource making mass-transit more viable. Fewer miles driven means fewer fatalities, both of drivers and pedestrians.

Small and economical self-driving electric pods could be mass-transit

Self driving rideshare is several decades away at the very least, and no one has demonstrated how to get from A to B in an economically viable way. (Uber and Lyft surviving on the good graces of VCs while hemorrhaging money is not economically viable.)

Probably more realistic is when existing transport paradigms like the bus adopt self-driving vehicles.

I think a 6 person mini-bus may be a winning format.

Do they have to be self-driving? Because if you skip that requirement, e-bikes fit the bill. :) There are also electric velomobiles that are very pod like. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CURGm-BcaaM Main problem seem to be not protective enough hull so you risk being run over by texting drivers.

Does the bike appear on demand at your place and disappear from your concern after you take another transport?

Self driving pods are a huge gain over the status quo.

I agree with you on the need to move towards mass transit but I disagree that more miles driven ~ more accidents. Level 4/5 automation will have the net effect of reducing the amount of accidents on the road.

Edit: clarified argument

Level 4/5 automation MAY have the net effect you suggest. Current self-driving efforts don't seem to be taking pedestrians into account very well at all, so that remains to be seen.

Who really knows what current self-driving efforts seem to be doing? All we know is what data the companies choose to release.

From a naive perspective, pedestrian avoidance seems like one of the easiest problems to solve.

Why not do both? It is not one or the other competition.

Every dollar (or hour) spent on self-driving is a dollar (or hour) not spent on mass-transit, so I'm not sure you're correct.

But yes, by all means, let's do both!

The headline says "Drivers are killing pedestrians at the highest rate in..." but there's no actual rate of pedestrian death stats in the article, there's an absolute increase, but that's not a rate -- what's the rate per pedestrian trips or pedestrian-miles? (cities are trying to become more walkable/bikable, so pedestrian trips may be increasing)

yes it is a rate, from the article: "The number of pedestrians killed — 6,283, an increase of 3.4 percent from the previous year".

It may not be the number you are looking for, but it is by definition a rate. It would be interesting to know what rate per pedestrian trips or pedestrian-miles are, but that data would be very hard to get across the entire US.

It's not the rate of drivers that kill pedestrians, as the title claims.

Even accidents/cars would satisfy the title. Those numbers you quote are just meaningless and should be ignored.

Also, pedestrians are walking without caution (staring at their phones) at the highest rate in history.

Yes, drivers should be accountable for pedestrian safety, but no law can absolve the common sense personal accountability of looking before leaping, ahem crossing

You'd be surprised (or perhaps not) at the amount of drivers who use their mobiles too while they drive.

I think what the parent is suggesting is that unless those drivers are driving onto the sidewalk, it wouldn't matter if the pedestrians chose to cross only when a driver was incapable of hitting them, regardless of whether that driver is looking or not. While it is incredibly irresponsible to use a phone and drive (and they should rightly be elevated in sentence should an accident occur), it's also very important to take responsibility for your own safety and not put yourself in life-threatening danger in the first place.

Yeah, I'm curious on what percentage of accidents could have been avoided by the pedestrian.

I've always compared car vs pedestrian similar to unarmed person vs gun holder. The unarmed person has the right away ... but he or she is still unarmed and needs to remember that. That being said, I do know of streets that have sidewalks only marked by paint, so unless you're acutely watching each car from each direction, there are definitely accidents that are unavoidable for the pedestrian.

I've seen drivers blindly turn right or left without checking for pedestrians so many times I've lost count. How am I, as a pedestrian, supposed to cross only when such a driver is incapable of hitting me? Only walk at night when there's no traffic?

There is no such thing as perfect mathematically provable safety. However that's not to say there aren't ways you can improve your odds. Looking both ways before crossing the street, although not perfect, is a pretty good technique. Being wary of cars that aren't pointed directly at you but which are coming in your general direction is a good idea. To this end, doing things like walking on the left sidewalk (or the right sidewalk in the UK or Japan) can help you to be aware of cars that shouldn't be on a collision course with you, but might be anyway.

When at a crosswalk with a walk signal active and cars applying their brakes to stop, do you step out in front of those cars with the assumption that they will successfully stop, or do you wait for the cars to make a complete stop before stepping out in front of them? Assuming they'll successfully stop might be reasonable in some scenarios, but an unsafe assumption in others. It's the sort of context-dependent thing you need to be aware of regardless of what any laws written by people say. Be more wary of cars coming down hills than cars going up them. Be more wary of cars when the road is wet or icy. Be more wary of trucks than cars, particularly those that look to have heavy loads, and be more wary of cars whose brakes are squealing.

Respecting the laws of man is generally a good idea, but you must also always respect the laws of nature. The laws of man won't save you when you get on the wrong side of nature.

I've been struck by a car while in a crosswalk. I waited to cross until the car stopped. It started again while I was in the crosswalk staring at them. Drivers are the problem not pedestrians.

As I said, there is no conceivable way you can ensure total safety; you can only improve your odds. It's not a matter of who "the problem" is. The driver being legally to blame (which is obvious) won't bring you back from the dead.

My priorities as a pedestrian are 1) Stay safe. 2) Obey the law. I do not count on the later to satisfy the former. I go above and beyond the requirements of (2) to satisfy the requirements of (1), because I am cognizant of my inability to sue myself back to life.

Sometimes I post things that I know will be controversial, and other times I'm surprised by what turns out to be controversial. I certainly didn't expect generalizing "look both ways before crossing the street" to be controversial.

I fear perhaps some have mistaken me for a habitual driver who wants to blame pedestrians. That couldn't be further from the truth. I am a habitual pedestrian with a rational fear of drivers.

So my concern with this mentality is that the problem really is drivers most of the time it's not something you as a pedestrian can do anything to mitigate or prevent. Generally, as a driver myself, I try to be courteous to pedestrians but I've had multiple times as a pedestrian where drivers have intentionally tried to hit me while running, as in swerved at. When my wife road her bicycle motorcycles would swerve at her and my daughter. We had a girl in our city running last year where a vehicle literally crossed the road, went offroad and ran her down to hit her then drove off. While I'm sure that most drivers try to be good drivers I can almost count on people running red lights in my area, not respecting crosswalks, and generally just being poor drivers. There's literally nothing I as a pedestrian can to to avoid a car moving faster than I can get out of the way. When running I wear reflective gear and headphones that allow outside noise in so that I can hear the road, I stay off the road in pinch points or areas of the visibility, and I still got hit when being careful. People who are normally fine outside of the vehicle turn into sociopaths and monsters when in their vehicles. So while yes there's some impetus on pedestrians to do their part it doesn't matter when vehicles don't do their part.

> "the problem really is drivers most of the time it's not something you as a pedestrian can do anything to mitigate or prevent.

Of course drivers are to blame, but that doesn't mean there aren't things pedestrians can do to improve our odds. My point was never that drivers aren't to blame. If I had a magical wand I could wave that vaporized all cars, I'd wave it and solve the problem for good. But I don't have that and fantasizing about it won't help me. What I do have is the ability to, for example, establish eye contact with the driver of every car I step in front of.

Will that keep me safe? No. Will that make me safer? Yeah, I'm pretty sure it does.

> When running I wear reflective gear and headphones that allow outside noise in so that I can hear the road, I stay off the road in pinch points or areas of the visibility, and I still got hit when being careful."

Did you stop wearing reflective gear because of that? Probably not, because I'm sure you do actually recognize that reflective gear makes you safer even if it doesn't make you safe. That's all I've been saying. If somebody comes at you with homicidal intent, reflectors won't help [you]. But if a driver were lazy, inattentive, tired, or otherwise dangerously incompetent but lacking murderous intent, there are many things a pedestrian can do improve their odds. Or maybe you want to believe that every single driver has murderous intent and reflectors are a liability to pedestrians because they make you easier to hit, but I'm pretty sure that's not true. Supposing it were true though, the pedestrian could still opt to camouflage themselves by wearing dark clothing with poor visibility....

Just to reiterate: The possibility of the pedestrian taking defensive action does not in any way suggest that the pedestrian is at fault when they get struck.

Driving is a priviledge, it's the driver's responsibility not to kill anyone with their weapon, the same way a runner should be responsible not to hit and kill a toddler with their body.

The person with the killing power is responsible for any blood spilled. In particular in the US where most of the roads are straight and super wide, how do you not see a pedestrian approaching the curb and reduce your speed accordingly until you're out of some kind of cone of uncertainty.

(I know, American drivers just turn right while looking left at high speed because of their crazy right on red and wide roads, so they don't see the pedestrians who had 15s to cross a 4 lanes road)

Totally agree. The amount of times I see pedestrians just go into a crosswalk with zero regard of their personal safety. 9/10 times, they are zoned into their phone.

Doesn't give you the right to kill them.

I am not saying to kill them. Just take a bit more caution with oneself. Obviously, drivers still need to pay attention as well.

Basically, ensuring that you have the right of way is not the same thing as ensuring that what you're doing is safe. Some people seem to struggle with this concept though. I once heard a limerick about it: Here lies the body of Henry Clay, who died maintaining his right of way. He was right, so right, as he drove along. But he's just as dead as if he were wrong.

Drivers are also staring at their phones. In fact I see far more drivers using their phones than pedestrians. And it's even more important for a driver to not use a phone.

Is there any data to support the theory that a rise in distracted walked has directly resulted in an increase in pedestrian fatalities?

Please keep in mind that vision impaired pedestrians do exist. It is up to the driver to obey the law and properly yield to pedestrians.

This explanation always shows up when there is a discussion on car safety on HN. However, it doesn't explain why pedestrian deaths have risen more sharply in the US than other countries

The penalty for being distracted should not be death.

That’s true with anything though right? Distracted when walking across train tracks? Distracted when on a high cliff hiking? There comes a point where people should be responsible for themselves. Someone walking off a curb doesn’t deserve to die, but that’s the consequence for walking off a curb.

The difference is that train tracks and high cliffs are not generally ubiquitous obstacles to get from A to B, whereas crossing the street is needed to get pretty much anywhere.

Pedestrians being restricted to curbs is a blip in the timeline of humanity, it's a very recent development.

The fact that we've collectively been lead to believe it's reasonable for multi-ton metal and glass racing living rooms to be operated at speeds that kill in our neighborhoods—where we live—is pretty nuts.

It's interesting to watch this video of San Francisco's Market street from 1906:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Q5Nur642BU

Cars travel at walking pace, and cars, streetcars, horses, etc all coexist -- pedestrians seem to cross the street at will, not following any signals or staying in crosswalks.

I think the reason this chaotic system works (aside from the lower speeds) is because street users expect the chaos, no one relies on a traffic signal to tell them when it's safe to cross, they know that they have to pay attention or they'll be run over (or will run over someone else).

Those photos don’t show the death and accident rates. It was chaos. People got ran over by wagons all the time.

Sorry but that is completely wrong. The rate of injuries and deaths on the roads were far worse in 1906 than today.

Is this not a normal increase, with regards to population growth and the increased focus on personal health (more joggers/cyclists), during that time frame?

I saw someone run a red by a local university (probably because they were looking at their lap), and only about half of the people in the intersection appeared to take notice. The rest were looking down at their hands... while starting to cross the street. Fortunatly it was only a few seconds after the light changed.

even walking down the street as a pedestrian is becoming a nightmare - dodging mobile phone zombies

All new cars should be mandated to have Collision Avoidance Systems as standard. This would reduce pedestrian deaths over time.

https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Collision_avoidance_system

People drive too damn fast - - and they idle their engines like mofos!

Pardon my french but this reckless behavior kills innocent people

Idling engines is super inefficient. It irks me to no end that we have cars sitting around just idling so their driver can listen to a tiny radio or charge their phone. Meanwhile, their engine is at low RPM's polluting their local air and whoever happens to walk by.

Can't wait for EVs to be widespread so lazy humans have a power source for their lazy car-sitting behaviors.

There isn’t enough lithium to make batteries to replace the US fleet, let alone the rest of the world. ICE will be here for a while. That’s not to mention the carbon and pollution output of creating new evs.

This is just incorrect, lithium is not the limiting factor for EV adoption. Currently, much bigger are cobalt supply, manufacturing capacity, and the un-priced externalities of carbon pollution. If you freed up those 3 factors, batteries would scale up ridiculously quickly, though yes admittedly in 2019 we can not simultaneously replace 300+ million cars instantly.

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