I live in a sun belt city. It's terrifying. People routinely run red lights and blast through turns even when pedestrians have the crosswalk with a green light. I am nearly hit at least a few times a month.
Also, the phenomenon of disappearing sidewalks mentioned above is frustratingly true here -- not a safe place to walk or bike without knowing your route 100% beforehand -- goes double for kids
Tom Vanderbilt’s excellent book “Traffic” goes into depth about this.
A big part of the design ideal is to stay in the air conditioning, and urban areas were designed around the car and AC. The engineering priority is throughput.
1) Urban planning that does not much consider the pedestrian or cyclist whatsoever and therefore encourages unsafe driving practices;
2) Distracted driving being nearly universal.