The New York Times has an interesting piece today about pedestrian deaths in the US. As I've noted before—along with many others—US pedestrian fatalities decreased for decades but then suddenly turned up in 2010. Since then fatalities have continued to drop in other countries but have increased about 50% in the US. Why?
The Times brings something new to this mystery: According to their analysis, pedestrian deaths have gone up only at night. During the day fatalities stopped declining, but didn't go up.
Possible reasons range from automatic transmissions to increased cell phone use to larger cars and trucks on the road. None of these seem really convincing, though. It turns out the evidence just doesn't support them. But there's also this fascinating tidbit:
This prompts an obvious alternative explanation: The increase in fatalities has something to do with pedestrian behavior. If it were driver behavior, after all, every age group would be increasing.
And guess who uses smartphones the most? Ages 18-64. Children largely don't have phones and old people don't use them much. So maybe the big change is pedestrians staring at their phones and walking unsafely?
Saying this is taboo, because we're not supposed to blame virtuous pedestrians when nasty, reckless, polluting drivers are ready at hand. And yet, if this were a matter of bigger cars or distracted drivers, surely they'd be wreaking havoc on kids and the elderly too? Why wouldn't they?
Granted, this is just a guess on my part. And there's another factor here that the Times doesn't mention: Only fatal crashes have gone up. The total number of pedestrian crashes has been rock steady the entire time.
So: the problem is only fatal crashes at night among ages 18-64 in the US. That is indeed very peculiar. And it's at least worth a look to see if this suggests something going on among pedestrians, not just drivers.
This post is like an New York Times science article on a topic I've studied that is so over-simplified and distorted that it makes me question if I can trust anything in the whole publication.
I would bet older people walk less than younger people, especially at night.
The question is: How good is the data? Fatal accidents are reliably reported, how about non fatal ones?
Also: The total number of fatal accidents is not all that large. If you slice it by age and other criteria you will get into territory where the significance of any result is rather uncertain. The whole result may be a statistical artefact.
Finally, however: If it is true that only fatal accidents have gone up: The reason must be the either the car or the driver, not the pedestrian. The hypothesis that 18 - 64 year olds are more vulnerable to those sort of injuries .than younger and older people is nonsense. And if 18 - 64 year olds (the "active generation") are more in a hurry than kids and geezers it stands to reason that both fatal and non fatal accidents must rise.
BTW here in San Jose another reason has been postulated: The proliferation of straight multilane streets with high speeds and with rare opportunities for safe crossing (for pedestrians) causes more people to take risks. And in this case the 18 - 64 group might indeed be more tempted to risk than older and younger people.
Fatal accidents are reliably reported, how about non fatal ones?
I was wondering about this. It wouldn't shock me if police department cutbacks in the wake of the great recession (state/local government budgets were absolutely hammered from roughly 2008-2015) prompted less reliable reporting of accidents. But fatal accidents would likely still be reported for obvious reasons.
There seem to be a lot of people here looking for one reason for the noted increase in pedestrian fatalities. How about "all of the above"?
It's likely that more than one thing contributes, sure (like, say, with crime). But sometimes the data look like what we'd see if one of these causes was the dominant one (like, again, with crime—and environmental lead). This looks to me like one of those cases. YMMV.