DOT's press office sends along the 2006 pedestrian fatality numbers for New York City along with a couple other years for context. The official count for 2006 is up from 2005 but a bit lower than Transportation Alternatives' number:
1994 -- 223
2005 -- 156
2006 -- 166
I get a 6.4% increase....not good. So I guess this isn't just in our imaginations
And what about pedestrian injury data for '06? Has DOT released that as well? If not, why not?
Keep in mind that the number of fatalities reported by DOT does not include pedestrians that pass away later from trauma associated with a motor vehicle crash. Counting death certificates is really the only way to get the actual number of pedestrian and bicyclists fatalities.
If the driver had been on foot and hit another pedestrian with a blunt object he/she would be charged with manslaughter!
A car is a blunt object and a hummer is an army vehicle.
When will the drivers who run into pedestrians will be treated like every other criminal? Chicago is doing it, why not New York?
"If the driver had been on foot and hit another pedestrian with a blunt object he/she would be charged with manslaughter!"
Surely it's more complicated than that. Let's not sound like raving lunatics, now. To hit someone with a hammer requires either a really careless person getting in the way of your construction efforts, or a specific intent to harm by aiming your hammer at someone.
Now, taking the construction analogy, it could also mean poor protections. Consider the scaffolding that goes up around buildings, to protect pedestrians from falling tools and other such dangers which stem from a legitimate activity (construction).
In the same way, if someone is using a car to get from point A to point B (a legitimate activity), accidents, "dropped tools," are bound to happen. As long as humans are involved, it will happen. I know some protest the term "accident" but until someone comes up with a more accurate term, it's the best one we have to describe "bad things that happen due to human error." I'd say a careless construction worker dropping a tool is pretty much the same as a careless driver hitting a pedestrian, though perhaps with less adverse consequences in the former case.
What matters is if there are appropriate protections in place. It looks, from the data, as if there are not.
That's what needs to be fixed. Both by reducing car use, regulating drivers more (speed limits, etc.), and better street design for behavior modification and actual physical protection.
Amy,
You are incorrect.
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