Why Pedestrians Die

摘要

While vehicle occupant fatalities have fallen steadily over the last decade, pedestrian deaths have remained constant despite attempts at remediation. This failure is rooted in lack of attention to the actual causes of vehicle-pedestrian collisions. These causes are evident in three types of research. One examines police reports and accident data to determine fault attribution. A second, goes further by specifying the actual events that caused of the collisions. The third, and most detailed method, is case-by-case human factors analysis of documents, pictorial evidence and the collision scene itself. All three methods arrive at the same conclusion: the primary cause of pedestrian collisions is pedestrian behavior. Death rates have not fallen because attention has focused the burden of remedial measures exclusive on the wrong party - the driver. Instead, preventative steps would be more productively, and more fairly, aimed at changing pedestrian behavior. Lastly, the early evidence on bicyclist fatalities shows similar trends and leads to similar conclusions.