Why Are So Many Pedestrians Killed by Cars in the Us?

People jaywalk because the lights are timed more for the convenience of the drivers. People dart out between parked cars because the nearest crosswalk is a long way away. People cross the interstate because otherwise their 5 minute walk becomes an hour. Drivers shouldn't be going 55 in spots where someone can be obscured by a row of parked cars. etc.

> I see jwalking pretty much every day.

Jaywalking was a created crime by the early car companies to try to take away blame from distracted drivers. https://www.grunge.com/721704/the-truth-about-how-jaywalking... says it better than I.

> One dude I saw just a few days ago was crossing an interstate (see that about 2-3 times a month in the same place).

That IS a problem. However, what is the locality doing to fixing an obvious problem of 'nowhere to safely cross a high speed road'? Aside "fuckit, cross halfway when it looks safe" is basically the only sane response. WALKING up or down an interstate or major highway to get to a light or some crossing way would take 1+ hours to do.

> Then to add to that I see every single day people walking doing silly things and walking into the roads where they should not be.

Are they actually obstructing, or just crossing and you don't like that?

> I see people walking when the signal says to stay put.

So in my liberal-ish city in a republican state, we have basically terrible cargo-cult traffic control. They do shit like "dont turn on pedestrian lights when nobody presses the button", no right-turn on reds even if theres no ped crossing, arbitrary bad speed control, stuff like that.

On the city square, its routine to see no cars cause the lights are anti-timed to impede cars. BUT the light will be green allowing all those cars (NONE!) to continue. So yeah, we look the 1 way - its a 1 way road - and we will cross when we're not supposed to.

Again, this is what happens when you mix blaming pedestrians, poor traffic handling, and cargo cult liberal ideas all together. Makes a terrible situation for everyone.

> I see people darting out from between parked cars.

Again, goes back to car companies criminalizing "jaywalking", in order to steer the blame to humans rather than humans driving a 1 ton slab of metal and plastic.

> But a car doing 55 does not care.

Ah hah! And there's the gotcha. You're not talking about downtown and slower streets, like city residential or the city square. You're talking about Stroads, this bastardized terrible mix between a street (slow, humans everywhere) and a road (high speed, no humans, limited entry/exit). Not Just Bikes talks extensively about it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORzNZUeUHAM

Yes, Stroads kill. And Stroads are EVERYWHERE in the USA. This US-centric anti-pattern is best seen with a state highway going 55MPH, maybe dropping to 40-45MPH with a town built AROUND this bisecting nigh-uncrossable stroad. They are some of the most anti-human infrastructure we have seen.

> I make sure I cross at the places designated to do so and also make sure there are no cars coming at that moment because some fool decided that was the perfect time to play with their phone.

Thats the problem with stroads and the highways that bifurcate towns and cities. There's FEW places to cross, and the lights themselves are almost never set up to actually allow pedestrian traffic. And you're lucky to even get a sidewalk. And if you do, your door prize is face full of vehicles fumes and super loud vehicles.

The USA has sold off and demolished pedestrian infrastructure for implicitly requiring everyone have a motor vehicle, unless you're lucky enough to live in a rare city with great public infra. (And no, bus lines that share the road with regular vehicles will take you 2 hours to get where your car can take you 20 minutes.)

They also changed bus routing best practice to alter the sorts of stops that were causing the bulk of the passing. Like for example right side stops on roads divided by any sort of median are avoided where possible these days.

I'd be cautious of reading _too_ much into that, because in that time period the US has largely legalised a popular drug. You'd expect this rate to rise just because a cop asking "were you using cannabis" in the US is now a very different threat level than it was 20 years ago.

Someone doesn't understand that any article that's drawing conclusions based on a workflow that involves putting a Chevy Suburban (functionally a chevy pickup from the B pillar forward) and a Honda HRV into the same category is sus at best and anyone uncritically accepting said conclusions is also sus at best.

If one wanted to be honest they'd look at GVW or some other metric that tracks size far more closely than a fairly arbitrary categorization that is highly gamed for regulatory reasons.

We're all just so sick of these shallow analysis. Shitting numbers and graphs onto them doesn't make them not shallow. Like what even is the point of a raw "deaths by state" map?[1]?

[1] https://xkcd.com/1138/

The article that has all the cool plots, and no relevant information like the actual vehicles being discussed?

The article that doesn't even bother putting a 2000 Camry side-by-side with a 2025 Camry to make it blatantly obvious that it's not just SUVs?

That article?

Most people prefer not to drive on roads like that.

One other thing that’s changed for both SUVs and sedans is that for the sake of occupant safety, the pillars are MUCH wider than they were in cars built 35 years ago. The impact on visibility is massive, and those pillars are generally placed to directly obstruct the view of pedestrians in or waiting to enter a crosswalk when the driver wants to turn through it.

I like (by which I mean I think it indicates a lack of moral character) that you say this despite the articles conclusion basically being "the data is all over the place, I see no strong trends <sigh> I guess it's the SUVs, ugh, maybe"

Like yeah, it probably is the SUVs to an extent but the data only indirectly supports this at best and there's probably confounding factors (in particular road design which has been discussed at length and people all over these commands are bringing up).

I really really really disagree with this.

A huge number of people could design a car-free or less car dependent life for themselves if that was something they valued highly.

People just don't value it as highly as they claim they do.

I knew from a very young age that driving a car seemed like a dumb way to live and so wondered why everyone did it and why nobody decided to try something different?

My view is that if people really hated driving they would change their lives to do it less! Instead they make excuses about how they have to drive. I judge people's actions and the way most people choose to live tells me that they love driving!

If you actually pay attention when driving you'll see a ton of sub par behavior. Ignorance is bliss and they're not ignorant.

(Not just Boston, I've seen this in some other cities since.)

I think it speaks volumes that the discussion is anchored around whether cars look or not despite the fact that the underlying algorithm will produce conflicts even if they do.

Not sure why the people in Vermont have all worked this out, but they do.