The American Automobile Association (AAA) Foundation for Traffic Safety has released a new technical report in collaboration with the Collaborative Sciences Center for Road Safety (CSCRS) that reveals trends associated with the rise in pedestrian fatalities in the United States.
The research was conducted in collaboration with the Collaborative Sciences Center for Road Safety (CSCRS), a National University Transportation Center funded by the U.S. Department of Transportation where UC Berkeley SafeTREC was previously one of five university consortium members.
CSCRS was led by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Highway Safety Research Center and included Chapel Hill, Duke University, Florida Atlantic University and University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Authors of this study include former SafeTREC co-director Jill Cooper and Aqshems Nichols, Ph.D candidate in transportation engineering at UC Berkeley.
Researchers performed case studies in three U.S. cities in order to identify causes and common factors in the increased rate of pedestrian fatalities and injuries. The report finds that the rate of pedestrian fatalities has risen by over 80% in the past 15 years, where the majority of increased deaths have occurred on urban arterial roads during nighttime. These conditions are particularly dangerous because urban arterial roads can have significant amounts of car traffic, unsafe conditions for pedestrians, and inadequate street lighting.
“The continued rise in pedestrian fatalities in the U.S. since 2010 is a traffic safety challenge we need to address,” said Dr. David Yang, president and executive director of the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety. “This study not only identified common underlying factors related to pedestrian deaths but opportunities where stakeholders can collaborate to make improvements in their communities. We need to work together to create safer transportation systems for pedestrians and other road users.”
According to the AAA press release, the following are key takeaways from the report:
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Most pedestrian fatalities occurred well outside of downtown: more than half happened more than 4 miles from the city center.
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Most of the pedestrian fatalities occurred on arterial roads, and about half occurred in darkness.
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Injuries and deaths occurred disproportionately in socially and economically disadvantaged neighborhoods and areas with older housing.
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Cities face challenges in improving pedestrian safety, including high costs for infrastructure upgrades, barriers to implementing changes on state-controlled roads, and public resistance to change.
The full technical report is available to view on the AAA website.