"This is clearly a good news, bad news scenario," said Jonathan Adkins, executive director for the Governors Highway Safety Association, said in a statement about the latest report from the nonprofit safety body on pedestrian fatalities. The study — Spotlight on Highway Safety: Pedestrian Traffic Fatalities by State — finds the number of fatalities has gone virtually unchanged in 2014 compared to the year previous, but 2013 and 2014 are still up 15 percent over 2009.
"While we're encouraged that pedestrian fatalities haven't increased over the past two years, progress has been slow," Adkins continued.
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States with large metropolitan centers reported the greatest number of pedestrian fatalities, with California, Florida, Texas and New York representing 43 percent of the overall 2,125 deaths reported in the first six months of 2014.
When it comes to deaths per 100,000 residents, Florida (2.70) was again at the top along with Delaware (2.56). In a stark reminder that not all people killed in car crashes are vehicle occupants, a staggering 45 percent of victims in all motor vehicle crashes in the District of Columbia were pedestrians.
The two main reasons cited for pedestrian deaths sound like a broken record: alcohol and distraction. More than a third of pedestrians in 2013 ages 16 and older had blood alcohol concentrations at or above the legal limit of 0.08 percent. Also, using data from emergency rooms, both distracted drivers and distracted pedestrians are contributing to injuries and deaths.
In Europe there has been a concerted effort to improve pedestrian safety from a vehicle design perspective, with some passenger cars equipped with active-deflection hoods and external airbags. Here in the U.S., the focus is on active sensing features, such as blind spot monitoring and auto-braking, instead of vehicle-on-passenger collision-prevention technologies.
Other initiatives are simpler. New York City instituted a new lower speed limit — from 30 mph to 25 mph — in November 2014 as part of its "Vision Zero" plan. Other safety advocates have called for a narrowing of streets in urban centers as a way to calm traffic.
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