Comment 110285

By kevlahan (registered) | Posted March 17, 2015 at 14:54:40 in reply to Comment 110282

You are putting together statistics from many different sections ... and of course the same incident can have multiple causes (which is why the cases you included add up to 112%!).

The Coroner concluded that lowering the speed would decrease the number and severity of collisions. This would need to include engineering the street to make it uncomfortable to drive faster than 30-40 km/h and reducing the speed limit.

Speed is an issue, even when pedestrians are not paying attention, because lower speeds allow drivers more reaction time and decrease stopping distances. Narrow lanes, chicanes and bumpouts encourage drivers to pay attention.

And, in the severest of collisions, where the pedestrian dies, in only 1/3 of cases did the pedestrian do anything at all to cause the collision.

Drunk walking should indeed be discouraged (it is illegal to be drunk in public already), but the scope for harm (at least to others) is far less than drinking and driving which is why we've focused on drinking and driving. It is nevertheless far better for someone to drink and walk than drink and drive.

The bottom line, as the report points out, is that the streets should be designed with the safety of the most vulnerable road users (i.e. pedestrians and cyclists) as a limiting factor. And, as has been pointed out repeatedly, "train and blame" (rather than engineered safety) has not been effective. Just look at countries (like Sweden) that have managed to significantly reduce injuries and death on the roads. They do not do this by blaming inattentive pedestrians and drivers!

Comment edited by kevlahan on 2015-03-17 15:07:03

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