Drivers in Los Angeles kill pedestrians and bicyclists at a significantly higher rate than nationally, according to a study reported by a Southland newspaper today.
The study by the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute found that pedestrians accounted for about a third of all traffic fatalities in Los Angeles, or nearly triple the national average of 11.4 per cent, the Los Angeles Times reported in an article on its website. About 3 percent of the fatalities were bicyclists, compared with 1.7 percent nationally.
3 Pedestrian Deaths Spur Santa Monica Into Action
The numbers are even worse in urban New York, where 49.6 percent of traffic fatalities were pedestrians and 6.1 percent were bicyclists, according to the study.
The study, which compared crash rates in Los Angeles, New York and nationwide, examined data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, California Highway Patrol and the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles, according to the Times. The database included 449,498 crashes
within L.A. city limits, with 2,086 involving at least one death during an eight-year period from 2002 through 2009.
The University of Michigan researchers found that women who lived in Los Angeles were less likely to be in an accident than men, the Times reported, and men accounted for a higher proportion of fatalities than the national average—62.3 percent compared with 57.6 percent.
The study also found that there are more fatal crashes at intersections in Los Angeles (36 percent versus 22 percent in the U.S.), and more fatal crashes at speeds of 35 mph or less (66.5 percent in L.A. versus 21.8 percent in the nation as a whole).
I'm sure it couldn't possibly have anything to do with the fact the nearly all of our streets in LA county are designed like highways (although SM is better than most). And there's no way it's because motorists in LA county regularly speed, tailgate and drive aggressively in densely populated areas, right? Here's some food for thought: http://streetsblog.net/2012/10/01/how-streets-designed-for-speed-led-to-the-death-of-seventh-grade-girl/
No amount of data will convince otherwise. No discussion of law enforcement education, flawed engineering, physics of speed safety, or anything else will convince the Gleen E Grab's of the world that human lives take precedent to automobile speed.
Parents have a lot of influence in our society, and if they take to streets with their kids in greater force, the politics will move, and what may seem a distant future now could be a much sooner one. We're spending a billion dollars right now to add 10 miles of carpool 1 lane in 1 direction on the 405. These are sums of money that if allocated to bike facilities could make LA a world class cycling city in short order, and all across the city, not just 1 corridor.