Probe: Pedestrian deaths in California rose 7% in the very first half of 2015
Pedestrians make their way around cars in the crosswalk at the intersection of Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue in Hollywood.
Pedestrians make their way around cars in the crosswalk at the intersection of Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue in Hollywood.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
Despite an enhanced concentrate on street safety, the number of pedestrians killed by vehicles in California rose 7% in the very first half of two thousand fifteen compared with the year before, according to a national probe released Tuesday.
Researchers with the Governors Highway Safety Assn., a nonprofit traffic safety organization, analyzed preliminary federal data that track the number of vehicle-related deaths in every state.
From January to June 2015, three hundred forty seven people on foot were struck and killed by cars across California, the explore found. In the same period the previous year, three hundred twenty three people were killed.
Nationally, the number of pedestrian deaths enhanced 6%, researchers said. But early data often are on the low side, they said, and when final statistics for the period are compiled, the increase will very likely rise to 10%, which would represent the largest year-to-year increase in fatalities since federal officials began tracking the figure forty years ago.
“We are fairly alarmed,” Richard Retting, the explore’s coauthor, said in a news release. “Pedestrian safety is clearly a growing problem across the country.”
The number of traffic fatalities across the United States has fallen by one-fourth over the last decade. But the number of pedestrians killed has remained vapid during the same period. Pedestrian deaths represented 11% of traffic fatalities in two thousand five and 15% in 2015.
Researchers see an increase in walking and driving. Americans drove a record 1.54 trillion miles in the very first half of 2015, spurred by low gas prices and a stronger job market.
Car companies proceed to upgrade cars’ safety features, meaning passengers have a greater chance of surviving a wreck. Pedestrians do not have those protections.
Data for Los Angeles County were not instantly available. But in an analysis last year, The Times found that pedestrians represent more than one-third of traffic deaths in Los Angeles County, a rate higher than the national average.
The analysis also found that almost a quarter of crashes involving a pedestrian occur at less than 1% of L.A.’s intersections.
As part of a campaign called Vision Zero, aimed at eliminating traffic deaths in Los Angeles by 2025, city officials are working to make many of those intersections safer by installing higher-visibility crosswalks, retiming traffic signals and adding bike lanes to reduce vehicle speeds.
Speed is a key factor in reducing pedestrian deaths, experts say. Pedestrians face a 25% chance of severe injury if they are hit by a car going twenty three mph, according to a explore by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety. That risk rises to 75% if the car is going thirty nine mph.
More people were killed by cars in California in the very first half of two thousand fifteen than in any other state. Adjusted for population, however, Florida had the highest fatality rate per resident, the probe said, followed by Arizona and Delaware.
On the other end of the spectrum is Vermont, which had no pedestrian deaths in the very first half of 2015, the explore said.
For more transportation news, go after @laura_nelson on Twitter.
