Pedestrian deaths, blaming the victim: headphones edition
January 19, 2012By Stephen Lee Davis
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| No headphones pictured here. Originally uploaded by Transportation for America to Flickr. |
| Submitted photo by Joan Hudson, P.E., of the Texas Transportation Institute. |
A new academic study looking at the numbers of pedestrians killed while wearing headphones ignores the overwhelming majority of pedestrian deaths, providing a healthy dose of blaming the victim while turning a blind eye to the actual problem.
At first glance, the numbers sound incredible. “The number of headphone-wearing pedestrians seriously injured or killed near roadways and railways has tripled in six years…” Wow, they’ve tripled? That must be a lot, right?
When you examine the numbers closely, though, it’s clear that this study is examining a share of pedestrian fatalities so small as to be almost statistically insignificant when compared to the problem of pedestrian deaths writ large.
The study has been highly successful at winning credulous news coverage and shifting blame to the victims, but by focusing on a tiny sliver of fatalities it does more to obscure the true causes than explain what is happening.
“Oh, they’re all wearing headphones now. That’s why pedestrians are getting killed.”
Let’s stop for a minute and acknowledge that being distracted is never a good idea, whether driving or walking. Especially if you’re navigating busy streets, you need all available senses at your disposal to make sure you arrive at your destination safely. That means not texting and keeping your eyes on the road while driving, and making sure that you can hear and see when walking.
From 2000-2009 47,700 people were killed while walking in the U.S. This University of Maryland study found 116 deaths in 8 years where headphones were said to be involved, or about 0.3% of all pedestrian deaths during the study period.
Spending our time focused intently on this tiny aspect of pedestrian deaths is like coming across a person who’s been stabbed in the chest, and worrying about finding the band-aid you need to patch the scrape on his elbow.
Which further proves just how loony the headline is in this story. (“Study: You are more likely to die walking with headphones”) This study doesn’t prove that you’re more likely to die while walking and wearing headphones, it just shows that those deaths have been increasing.
You want to know how you are more likely to die while walking? By walking along or trying to cross a busy arterial, state highway or other bigger/busier road eligible to receive federal funding, where fully two-thirds of all pedestrian fatalities from 2000-2009 took place.
Are headphones the primary problem living and walking along here?
The primary reasons for the other 35,885 or so pedestrian deaths in the last 10 years hasn’t changed with the rise of smartphones, iPods and ubiquitous white earbuds. That song remains the same: millions of people live on or near streets and roads that aren’t safe for walking; streets without sidewalks, streets without safe crossings, streets that force far too many people to brave unsafe conditions on foot simply to get from A to B.
Are we concerned about making these roads safer? Are we studying smart solutions and ways to use federal funds to retrofit these dangerous corridors to make them safer for everyone — an appropriate decision, since federal funds and design guidelines helped create many of these dangerous corridors in the first place.
Nope, we’re studying what may (or may not have) contributed to the death of 0.3% of all people killed while walking in the last 8 years. And using the numbers for even more ammunition in the never ending quest to blame the victim
Admittedly, with problems so big that any solution will be complex and layered, there’s a tendency to look for a simpler explanation and try to find a more manageable problem that we can solve. Just like coming across a person with the sucking chest wound and having no medical experience under our belt, sometimes we’re just overwhelmed by the magnitude of the problem. So we focus on the elbow scrape we can fix that just needs a band-aid.
But this problem demands and deserves our immediate attention. Instead of spending our time concerned with why the 0.3% were killed, how about we stop and have a serious look at the larger, and much more serious problem of the 99.7%?
Every year we don’t, another 4,000-plus people die preventable deaths.
Smart questions submitted for Secretary LaHood to answer
January 18, 2012By Stephen Lee Davis
Last week we asked you for questions for U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, and you came through with some great questions and topics that he’ll hopefully consider for his next edition of “On The Go,” his recurring video segment where he answers questions and discusses transportation topics at a little more length than he can in his daily blog or regular tweets.
We wanted to take just a moment to thank everyone who sent in their questions, via comments, email, twitter and pack mule. Okay, okay, we didn’t get any questions by mule but they certainly came in every other possible way.
US DOT folks have told us that they’ll probably tape this next episode later this week, so we’ll have to wait at least a week or so before we discover which questions Sec. LaHood decided to answer, but below are just a few of the strong questions that were submitted for him to consider. Anyone want to take your own stab at some of these in the comments?
We’ll be sure to post the video as soon as they release it. Thanks so much to everyone who took the time to write down a question and pass it along.
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Secretary LaHood: Thank you for your leadership. After two decades of consistent progress on walking, bicycling and livability initiatives, what can be done now to keep the current Congress from going backwards and eliminating or reducing key programs such as Safe Routes to Schools, Transportation Enhancements and Recreational Trails? The United States need more resources for pedestrians, bicyclists and active transportation, not less.
Jeff Olson, R.A. – Principal
Alta Planning + Design
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The High-Speed and Intercity Passenger Rail program was (and is, through its remaining trickle of funds) one of the most exciting and potentially transformative initiatives of the Obama administration. I know you yourself have expressed a deep commitment to this program as well. What’s your strategy for getting the program back on track, if you’ll pardon the well-used pun, and for changing the “death of high-speed rail” narrative to a “high-speed rail’s next steps” narrative?
Andrew Guthrie
Minneapolis, MN
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In what areas could advocates do a better job making the case for federal funding for active transportation projects?
@ellyblue
Elly Blue
Portland, OR
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The interstate highway system continues to provide the nation with remarkable interregional mobility. However, is it possible that constructing freeways through the hearts of our major cities was a mistake? Would the federal government consider enhancing its role in helping cities assess whether communities might be better off converting some of these highways into surface streets or even parks, housing, etc? Thank you, and keep up the great work.
Commenter “Clutch J”
Do you have a burning question for Secretary Ray Lahood?
January 10, 2012By Stephen Lee Davis
I hope so, because the U.S. Secretary of Transportation wants to answer yours!
Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood has asked Transportation for America’s many partners and supporters to submit questions for him that he’ll answer in his next edition of “On the Go,” a monthly video segment with the Secretary where he answers a few in-depth transportation-related questions. Here’s the December edition of the show:
His office has asked us to gather a collection of questions from T4 America partners and our thousands of supporters from all across the country. So ask away! Do you want to know about the prospects of the transportation bill or what the administration is doing to get it passed? Curious about the future of the high-speed rail program after recent cuts? Whatever you’d like to know, you can ask it here and it’ll land on the Secretary’s desk — though no guarantees on which questions he chooses, of course.
You can submit your question a few different ways:
- Leave it right here on this post in the comments
- Ask it on Twitter by including the hashtag #q4ray at the end of your tweet
- Email it directly to us at info [at] t4america.org and we’ll pass it along.
Another Atlanta-area pedestrian suffers similar fate as Raquel Nelson’s son
January 4, 2012By Stephen Lee Davis
In a story far too similar to Raquel Nelson‘s ordeal, a boy was struck and killed while crossing a 5-lane arterial highway in metro Atlanta with his stepfather on New Year’s Day. Just like the incident that claimed the life of A.J Nelson, the child was halfway across a busy street with a parent and two other siblings when he was struck by the driver of the car. The family was trying to cross five-lane Flat Shoals Parkway, on a stretch with no crosswalks visible nearby, to reach the apartment complex where the boy’s mother lives.
“The child, along with an adult and other children, were attempting to cross the street and they had crossed the northbound lanes and were standing in the middle turn lane when, according to the adult, the boy pulled away. He was then hit by a car traveling in the southbound lane,” DeKalb Police spokeswoman Mekka Parish said.
Just like Raquel Nelson’s story, the nearest crosswalk wasn’t “near” at all. The family could have walked either 0.4 miles roundtrip to the south, or 1.2 miles roundtrip to the north — a long trip which also would’ve taken them across the narrow bridge over I-285 where, incidentally, two other pedestrians have been killed in the last 10 years.
Image from our Dangerous by Design interactive map
Now, this point of this post isn’t to say that this driver was in the wrong — the preliminary reports indicate that the child pulled away from his stepfather and stepped out into the southbound lanes and the driver probably couldn’t have stopped. Though they’d done it dozens of times, perhaps the father made a poor judgement to try and cross the street there. But just like Raquel Nelson, this story does illustrate the insanity of how we fund and plan our transportation network in urbanized (and urbanizing) places like this.
Look closely at this graphic of the area.
This short section of Flat Shoals south of I-285 has no fewer than three relatively high-density apartment complexes, as well as a handful of restaurants, stores and other retail offerings fronting the roadway, ostensibly hoping to serve the nearby residents, at least in part. The street does have sidewalks on both sides, yet the two nearest crosswalks on Flat Shoals in either direction are at least .8 miles apart. Federal dollars (or at least federal design guidelines) were likely used when this road was widened to 5 lanes. The city or county approved high-density apartment complexes and retail on both sides of the road in a corridor without making any attempts to ensure those residents would be able to walk in the area safely, save for the tacked-on sidewalks on each side.
The planning and design of this corridor and the land use around it hasn’t kept up with the needs of the people living in it.
Should we legitimately expect residents of the apartment complexes on one side of Flat Shoals to walk nearly half a mile to reach the Jamaican restaurant across the street? According to several other media reports on the incident, the family wasn’t alone in trying to cross there that evening, and some residents have been asking for improvements to make a safe crossing there for a long time.
The family told CBS Atlanta that the street in front of their apartment complex has always been dangerous. There is heavy traffic and no stoplight or crosswalk. ”It’s very dangerous, very dangerous,” said Isaac. “You would think they would have a crosswalk if you have a plaza right across the street and apartments right here.
There isn’t a crosswalk, even though dozens of people cross the street in this very spot each day. How many other streets like this are there in Atlanta? In Georgia? In the United States?
Will the stepfather will be charged in the child’s death, as Raquel Nelson was? Probably not, since the incident didn’t happen in Cobb County, where the prosecutor is prone to bringing such charges. Perhaps Dekalb County officials remember her recent trial and subsequent national media attention shining an angry spotlight on their neighboring metro county.
Beyond that, one would hope that local officials have learned the more important lesson about providing safer streets for people to get around on — no matter whether they’re on foot, bike or in a car. Local and state officials have great power in making some of those decisions.
While needed, that’s a piecemeal approach to a problem that is truly federal in scope. Two-thirds of all pedestrian fatalities in the last 10 years occurred on roads just like this one — state highways and busy arterials built with federal funds and federal design guidelines. Shouldn’t the federal transportation program be used to help fix these dangerous mistakes that it created in the first place? What we really need is a transportation bill that makes the safety of everyone on our roads a priority, so stories like this one — and Raquel Nelson’s among thousands of others — can become a distant memory.
No family in an urbanized area should have to choose between crossing a dangerous street or walking half a mile out of their way just to cross the street to their house. We can do better.
Updated (1/12/12): PEDS, a partner of ours that recently helped us deliver a petition in Atlanta on behalf of Raquel Nelson, submitted an op-ed to the AJC that ran last week.
Pedestrian facilities are often seen as a local issue. The proposed project list adopted by the regional roundtable, for example, dedicates just one-third of 1 percent of the regional funds to pedestrian and bicycle projects.
Yet the Atlanta Regional Commission’s 2010 on-board transit survey confirmed that nearly three-fourths of transit trips begin with walking trips. Research by the ARC also suggests that people who walk to transit are among the region’s most vulnerable road users. From 2004 to 2008, one-fourth of all pedestrian crashes occurred within 100 feet of transit stops.
Congress fails to keep the transit benefit from being slashed at the end of the year
December 19, 2011By Stephen Lee Davis
Unfortunately, the Senate’s extension of the payroll tax cut did not include a provision for keeping commuter tax benefits equal, so at the end of the year, the transit pre-tax benefit will be cut in half, and the parking benefit will be increased $10 to $240 to nearly double the amount of the transit benefit. (The transit benefit is being increased from its original level of $120 to $125 for a cost of living adjustment.)
There is still hope for the early months of 2012 when Congress comes back in session, but with Congress about to leave for the year, this change will definitely be enacted come January 1.
So if you need more than $125 of your income each month deducted pre-tax to pay for your transit commute or vanpool, you’ll be out of luck. With this inaction in both chambers of Congress, the federal government is sending a message loud and clear to commuters: they’d like you to start driving to work.
This is disappointing news to many of us, no doubt.
Many in Congress don’t seem to understand what it’s like to be a daily commuter trying to get from A to B each day without breaking the bank. Transportation is the second largest household expense for many households, eating up an even larger proportional share of income for the poorest Americans. The millions who depend on transit to get to work each day shouldn’t have to pay more, and certainly not for something that also saves us energy, reduces congestion and emissions, and uses less oil.
To those of you who sent messages or made phone calls to your representatives in Congress, we thank you. Though it’s not too late to make a call now so they continue to hear that this provision will do serious harm to transit commuters in January, we’ll likely have a renewed push in mid-January 2012 when Congress comes back to Washington after a long holiday break.
Update: The Washington Post editorial page opined in favor of extending the transit benefit.
WHETHER THE federal government should give a tax break to workers to help pay for their commutes is a question that is certainly worthy of discussion. What shouldn’t be on the table is giving a bigger edge in any subsidy to those who drive, as opposed to those who use mass transit — since there is no reason to encourage more traffic, more pollution and more gas consumption. That, however, will be the outcome if Congress doesn’t act before it adjourns for Christmas.
Transit flexibility bill introduced by Senator Brown is badly needed in many cities
December 16, 2011By Stephen Lee Davis
WASHINGTON, DC — This week, Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) introduced the Local Flexibility for Transit Assistance Act, which would give local transit agencies flexibility in how they choose to allocate federal funding, especially during times of economic crisis. It provides transit systems with the option to use a portion of their federal transit funds for operating assistance to keep buses and trains running and avoid potential fare increases. This bill is the Senate companion to H.R. 3200, introduced by Representatives Carnahan and LaTourette.
Sarah Kline, Policy Director at Reconnecting America, released the following statement on Transportation for America’s behalf:
“This bill from Senator Brown is badly needed in many cities across the country. We are in the midst of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, with gas prices wildly fluctuating, and hard-working Americans need more affordable transportation options. Despite booming ridership, transit agencies across the country are having to cut service or raise fares, leaving people stranded without a way to get to work, to school, or to the doctor. This bill by Senator Brown will help to ensure that people in cities of all sizes can continue relying on public transportation to get them where they need to go.”
Latest batch of TIGER grants released, supporting locally-led innovations in transportation
December 15, 2011By Stephen Lee Davis
The third batch of TIGER transportation grants was released today, and Secretary LaHood is busy today traveling between events in Cincinnati, Philadelphia and Chicago to announce specific grants in those cities.
In case you’re not familiar with TIGER, it’s a relatively small competitive and merit-based grant program for transportation projects that address economic, environmental and travel issues at once. Thousands of applications were received by the USDOT — more than 3,200 for the $2.6 billion total that’s been granted as of today in the last two years — and they announced 46 new grantees for the $527 million in available funding for this round.
The projects span the country and encompass a wide range of projects that improve ports, relieve road, freight or rail congestion, make unsafe streets safer for walking or biking and improve transit connections. Many of the projects accomplish several of these goals at once. The projects that states and localities submit for TIGER applications, usually with broad local and community support, often have a hard time getting funded under the outdated structure of the current federal transportation program.
We’ve added today’s TIGER III grants to our map of TIGER grants from 2010 so you can find grants near you and learn more. The full list of grants is available below a larger version of this map on this page, http://t4america.org/resources/tigermap/, as well as code to embed the map on your own site.
Senate committee takes positive steps for freight, multimodalism, performance and safer streets
December 14, 2011By Stephen Lee Davis
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| Sen. Rockefeller, Senate Commerce Committee Chair (USA Today photo) |
The Senate Commerce Committee this morning passed a bill to create and implement goals and objectives for the overall transportation bill, update our federal freight transportation policy, and an amendment to help ensure that federal dollars help build streets that are safe for all users.
As a refresher, there are four committees that share most of the responsibility for the bill in the Senate, with the Commerce Committee covering safety and freight, as well as a few other components. Today’s bills (including others not mentioned) represent the majority of this committee’s contribution to the overall Senate transportation bill.
Many components of Senator Lautenberg’s FREIGHT Act, which we’ve been supporting since its introduction in 2010, were passed out of committee as a part of S. 1950 today. It would create a coordinated national policy for freight and ports across the country.
The FREIGHT Act was combined with a separate bill about performance goals and objectives to become the Surface Transportation and Freight Policy Act. These two proposals both had language on measuring performance – one focused on the freight system and the other on the entire surface transportation network.. The combined bill melds performance goals and objectives from both bills to see if we’re really spending money wisely across our whole system, not just freight.
This bill will establish national policy objectives and goals for the transportation system. It explicitly covers key indicators such as congestion, road condition, reducing environmental impacts, improving the reliability of freight movement, increasing access to transit, and reducing traffic fatalities across all modes. It directs the Secretary to create a national strategic plan for surface transportation and freight and examine all transportation programs for their consistency with these goals and objectives, evaluating and reporting on that every two years.
There’s also a multimodal grant program for freight infrastructure projects focused on bottlenecks, areas of congestion and other key freight needs. The projects are selected by criteria that support many of the same goals and objectives listed above.
The FREIGHT Act was passed out of committee on a party line vote. Republican Senators had asked for more time to review the legislation and raised concerns about the potential impact on the Highway Trust Fund. However, EPW Chairman Barbara Boxer, a member of the Commerce Committee, spoke up in support of Senator Lautenberg’s amendment and assured the Committee that the program wouldn’t impact the trust fund. “I support what Senator Lautenberg is doing with this,” she told her fellow Committee members.
Senator Begich introduced an amendment to “ensure that the design of Federal surface transportation projects provides for the safe and adequate accommodation…of all users of the transportation network,” which passed on a unanimous voice vote after it was amended.
Under this bill, USDOT will work with states to develop standards to ensure that any surface transportation project built with federal funds provides safe and adequate accommodation for all users. Senator Thune offered an amendment to this that would give states discretion as to what is safe and adequate. States have the option of developing their own standards which would then apply instead of the federal standards. This will help states have been leading the way on policies to improve street design.
The Commerce Committee could take up other key provisions in 2012 related to intercity passenger rail, the TIGER program and an Infrastructure Bank, but this morning’s provisions are now done and will join MAP-21 and the pending Banking Committee markup in awaiting floor action in the Senate.
Related: read our full statement on today’s Commerce Committee action
Transportation for America responds to Senate Commerce Committee actions on transportation authorization
December 14, 2011By Transportation for America
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Senate Commerce Committee today adopted two key policy measures for the upcoming authorization of the federal transportation program. The “Surface Transportation and Freight Policy Act of 2011” establishes policy goals for the federal surface transportation program, such as addressing congestion, improving access to multiple travel options, supporting domestic manufacturing and reducing impacts on the environment and public health. It also directs the U.S. Department of Transportation to create a national surface transportation and freight strategic plan and establishes a multimodal grant program for alleviating bottlenecks in the freight system.
An amendment offered by Senator Mark Begich (D-Alaska), and modified by Senator Thune (R-SD), directs the DOT Secretary to “establish standards to ensure that the design of Federal surface transportation projects provides for the safe and adequate accommodation … of all users of the transportation network, including motorized and non-motorized users.”
Transportation for America’s director, James Corless, offered this statement in response:
“The Commerce Committee’s measures offer critical policy direction at a time when our key national infrastructure program is in urgent need of renewed focus and reinvigoration. Establishing national goals and performance-based objectives for our investment in transportation would be a vast improvement over our current system, improving accountability and transparency of federal transportation spending. The Surface Transportation and Freight Policy Act would go a long way toward ensuring that we get the most bang for the buck from our increasingly constrained transportation dollars.
At a time when pedestrian fatalities and injuries are rising as other traffic fatalities fall, the Begich amendment would help to improve safety for everyone on our roads and save money. With support from the full Senate and incorporation into the House’s companion bill, these measures would establish safety, fairness and efficiency as the hallmarks of the next authorization.”
Today’s Headlines – 12/13/11
December 13, 2011By Transportation for America
Like the voice of one crying in the wilderness, former New York City traffic commissioner urges his fellow traffic engineers to adapt and evolve, or risk becoming marginalized. (Engineering News-Record)
Gannett “uncovers” the fact that federal transportation dollars are given out to states with little accountability for how the money is spent. (LoHud.com)
Does MAP-21 mean big changes for freight in the U.S.? (Tri-State Transportation Campaign)
Apathy from lawmakers could be the reason that the pretax transit benefit could get slashed in half come January 1. (Politico)
Traffic fatalities reach record low as pedestrian fatalities rise. Relatedly, 12 pedestrians were struck in a suburban D.C. county in less than 72 hours. Two died. (Governing, Washington Post)
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- House committee ignores broad opposition, decimates transit funding anyway
February 3, 2012 - Massive letter opposing House leadership attack on transit sent to Capitol Hill
February 3, 2012 - House leadership making unprecedented assault on public transit
February 2, 2012 - House Ways and Means proposal to end guaranteed funding for public transportation undoes bipartisan agreement since Reagan
February 2, 2012 - Pedestrian deaths, blaming the victim: headphones edition
January 19, 2012
- House committee ignores broad opposition, decimates transit funding anyway
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