Between 2009 and 2024, pedestrian deaths increased 72% across the U.S.
Over the same period, such deaths declined in most other developed nations, according to United Nations data.
From the WSJ article: https://www.wsj.com/us-news/the-deadly-1-5-mile-corridor-that-shows-the-fatal-flaw-in-americas-road-design-8f424579
106 replies
I wonder why
They should not be legally classified as a car. That should require a special license to drive. That thing is like a freaking wheel loader.
Here comes the fun part. They are legally not classified as a car, at least not in the US. That's the whole point and the reason, why they are allowed to be much deadlier for everyone else, unsafer also for those inside and more polluting.
So you do need a special license to drive this behemoth?
Oh no, normal license is fine. It just means it doesn't need to meet the same safety or emissions regulations, and also has a lower tax rate. Because it can be used for work you see
Bro that's fucked up. That is... not right. This type of heavy vehicle would require a special license in my country.
If you're interested about this, here is a video from Climate Town about this topic. He mentions it less than two minutes in: SUV's are regulated as "non passanger work vehicles" and don't have to hit the same standards as regular cars and manufacturers can make much more money selling them.
Of course this is absolutly insane. How does it make sense that 40+% of all vehicles on the road in the US are "non passanger work vehicles".
I mean cause and effect is the other way around. Non-passenger work vehicles were mostly work vehicles until they started being regulated differently. Those regulations were clearly a problem long before they created the current situation
Massachusetts was one of the holdouts: not that they could regulate the vehicles but I still remember when they required a commercial license
Yes work... Buying a single 2x4 at home depot and putting a blanket down so it doesn't scratch your bed
😂
Agree with you. These should be considered as heavy vehicles (sorry if I'm wrong. English is not my native language). The number of these accidents that happen in the US is insane.
not just a heavy vehicle, but a large vehicle too! They should require all those amber lights along the sides like trucks and buses do.
Indeed.
I've seen some videos where these monstrosities drove over sports cars, it's madness.
https://historyjar.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Suburban-Family-Life-1.jpg
Searching for “wholesome kid with family car 1950s” results in photos slightly different for some reason (not that mass motoring waa ever the answer)
The US is de-civilizing itself out of frustration
If US Baby Boomers could read.
It really does blow my mind, if you look at graph after graph of the US compared to the world, so much of the world is in line and the US is a constant outlier and yet people venimently state how good things are and “it’s just because the US is so big”, which is a complete fallacy.
Canada too, ripping out bike lanes.
Always been a state of barbaric cruelty. Literally founded by enslavers.
Don't forget that it was in part religious people who left Europe, because Europe was not religious enough for them, in the 18th and 19th century.
Terrible street design which prioritizes speed of cars over the safety of the community. The rich and selfish get to kill everyone else so they don't have to wait a bit longer crossing town.
Added bonus: the cars also pollute the fuck out of your home in the process.
In addition, the tarmac tanks get bigger and bigger to a point where you just can't see pedestrians at all.
Vengeance is Mom’s: Meet the eight-seat armoured SUV perfect for parents who crave militarized luxury
I'm not paranoid. THEY are after ME!
They optimize the roads for speed because that means easy revenue from issuing speeding tickets to people moving at a rate that road has been optimized to handle. Unsafe driving practices are just opportunities for profit. Tail light out? You get pulled over, ticketed, and then released back onto the road still with a broken tail light, only now you have to both pay for the tail light and potentially the fine if you don't take time off work to go to court and get it waived.
Actually making the community safe isn't profitable.
I went to America for the first time a year and a half ago. The biggest culture shock was definitely the horrible infrastructure. Second to that was the amount of dogs that weren't trained at all.
People talk a lot about feeling unsafe in areas like Tenderloin in SF, but being near any of the dumb, giant car traffic made me feel way more unsafe.
I've spent time in over 30 countries, including developing and emerging countries, and the US is by far the one I felt the least safe in.
What made you feel unsafe, specifically?
I am not the original poster but I would say the horrendously pedestrian hostile design of pretty every place outside some older neighbourhoods and central areas is one of them. But also the poor neighbourhoods feel dangerous, more so than in many other parts of the world (of course there are even worse places, South African cities for example, from what I have heard).
yeah. I foolishly thought that if I booked the hotel a hundred metres from where I'd be working, I wouldn't need a car. Nope.
Also something about the way the cops carry themselves make you feel less safe to see them, rather than more safe. And for a "land of the free" there seems to be so many rules and warnings absolutely everywhere just waiting to trip you up.
I'm reluctant to name individual incidents because the dynamic of forum posts suggests that some smartass will leap in to say "oh that never happens in your country?", but I can only relate my own experiences, e.g. beggars waiting at junctions going up to my car to ask for money, or a road rage guy in a huge truck that followed me many miles back to my hotel to shout at me for turning into the lane he was trying to turn into. Yeah it can happen in other places, but to me it happened in the US.
In total I've been to 10 different states, spanning a period of over a year, and concluded that the US is basically everything they accuse their enemies of being.
I see, yeah.
I hear (and see footage of) some pretty awful things happening in Mexico and Brazil as well. Those darn favelas. 🫣
Lemmy.
For sure, I feel like I'm going to get killed every time I bike anywhere even though I live in a low crime area
If you live outside of dense urban areas, there are usually NO sidewalks for pedestrians. Intersections often lack crosswalks, and the timing of traffic lights don't actually give people enough time to even cross the street. On top of that, with the advent of cell phones, people are more distracted while they are driving than ever before.
Not only have the vehicles gotten bigger, but the conservatives have purposely pushed vehicular homicide as something that is acceptable for groups like protesters. Just mention a "liberal" blocking the road to any conservative to have them quickly quip that they would run them over.
Normalizing vehicular homicide is totally a reflection of our safe and sane car culture in the US.
Conservatives rarely see ISIS tactics they don’t love
Correlate that with truck size.
Edit: can’t find a “size” chart, google and the rest are force feeding me “market share” as a size, not GVW or height. Height of hood could probably be part of the reason for increase in deaths, both driver visibility issues and more likely to cause head injury. However, a generic weight chart shows trucks growing in size more rapidly and overall weiging more than cars for quite a while.
Correlation != causation, but yeah. Might be a thing.
It's even scarier because I've seen fewer and fewer people outside walking over the years. I'd imagine that it's more dangerous than it seems.
I imagine it's just one more contributing factor as well as significant phone use while driving, awful infrastructure, near non-existent requirements to get behind the wheel, and just generally terrible driving culture.
I got my first speeding ticket ever this year (whoops...) and elected to do traffic school. It was all online, like $10, and you just keep taking the test until you pass. It's just a stupid formality that teaches no one anything.
Terrible infrastructure decisions combined with massive tank sized vehicles going 40 mph down side streets while many are stressed out working 2 jobs looking down at their smart phone to see if they're going to be late. Surprised?
And company policies that consider 1 minute late to be penalty-worthy. And long vast stretches of straight road. ("Design roads like barrels and people will drive like bullets.")
Longer and longer commutes...
Unpredictable jams and construction...
It's all fundamentally designed in opposition to human well-being.
I still remember when a coworker a while back came to work the first time an hour late because their alarm didn't go off in the morning and they were freaking out. One of the reasons I left. I seriously hate that culture entirely.
As a Miata driver in the deep south - it has never been more dangerous.
I used to be one of those as well. Moved to WV and it added a new element of fun...icy roads. Three years of that and sadly I became an ex-owner of a Miata since I couldn't really winter the car and I had a motivated buyer. I miss that car most days but you really have to be on your toes all the time with the tractor trailers and "yank tanks" as they lovingly refer to them across the pond.
Subes are boring but effective in this part of the country.
Between the rise of SUVs, and the increase in distracted driving, I'm not surprised in the slightest.
We really need to treat driving offenses with way more scrutiny.
I found out recently that operating a boat while intoxicated is a mandatory jail sentence. Meanwhile there are people out driving drunk right now who are 3+ DUIs.
I think it should be 1 and done. After that, you should have to choose between being legally allowed to purchase alcohol, or being legally allowed to drive, and if you blow over 0.00 on a breathalyzer after that, it's an automatic 10 year sentence.
What about when the cops make you blow into a breathalyzer multiple times until it puts you over the legal limit? It's the citizens' responsibility to tell then to reset the machine.
I was too poor to afford a lawyer. To someone who was only 21 and just getting started on his own that ruined my early adult life financially. Over $15,000 for all the classes, court costs, additional insurance, etc. This was early 2000s, I don't even want to adjust that amount for inflation.
Maybe think before you decide other people's fate. What happened to me can and does happen to anyone the police don't like.
Laws to prosecute police officers that provide false testimony or fabricate evidence?
Personally, I see saving the 30+ people who are going to die from drunk driving every day as more important than the serious (but seldom) consequences that happened to you due to a corrupt/incompetent cop and lawyer. No offense.
I wish financial hardhsip on you, then.
Only if you also wish death for yourself...
That won't be possible until there are practical alternatives to driving across all towns and cities.
It is totally possible to ban someone from purchasing alcohol though. Let the individual make a decision on which is more important.
You should lose your license for drunk driving for at least a year minimum, mandatory. Or be thrown in the stockade and have tomatoes thrown at ya for 3 weeks. Or both.
Both is good.
People have to drive around here, but no one has to drink. This is why I think we should make a drunk driver choose between legally drinking or legally driving since they clearly aren't responsible enough to be allowed to do both.
I think its about time we stop talking about the US as a developed nation. It really isn't for a majority of americans, and it does appear to be steadily devolving. It's maybe not yet a fully fledged 'poor country" but it is way more of a shithole than I would suppose 80% of countries in the developing world. And the fact that do many Americans think they're the greatest country since sliced bread came around is something I find bemusing
Simply because this statistic is not getting better does not mean that the United States is not a developed country. It means it is something to be addressed.
Many other statistics have the US improving rapidly e.g. crime, murder, life expectancy, and drug deaths. United States is also home to several vision zero cities which are actively improving this statistic.
The thing to address seem simple in theory: copy a model that works fine. It may mean to change some rules, and it may have an impact on the american way of life.
Also, neighbours such as Mexico, and far more Canada do far better on that point. So there should be a way to do better without even push too hard... But it would be very impressive if USA could find a way working really well.
Nice one dude! Very original! America bad!
are you saying america isn't catastrophically bad?
I'm not sure you guys understand what catastrophically means. And I think the problem is we have a bunch of folks who don't live here, who only get their news from the comments of Lemmy posts, and they go and opine from there on the state of America as a whole.
I live in New Jersey. Things are pretty good. We're not without problems, cost of living is a bit high, coats for utilities have been going up. Not great. We also have the best education in the country, one of the safest places to live. I have access to everything. I live in a town where I can walk anywhere, including to the train station.
It's just this constant homogenization of America. The country was founded on this whole states rights idea, and every state tends to operate a little differently. The northeast corridor of the US is a fantastic place to live. The gulf (of Mexico) coast? I have no idea, never lived there, but from what I hear and read, it's not for me.
And yeah, this administration is terrible. There's fortunately some modicum of buffering that living in a good state provides. It's not perfect. It is not catastrophically bad, not even close. We have elections currently ongoing. I have hope that the elections will swing things to the left.
Now, if some games get played with the elections, then I'll adjust my thinking. Everyone here seems to think it's a foregone conclusion, but I'm not there yet. Lemmy and reddit are bordering on the same cult status maga has, but I happen to agree with most of what they think so it's okay. I do think each community tends toward hysteria first.
Hostile, selfish, and distracted drivers
The drivers are a constant. This is a symptom of regulatory capture.
The cars are not the same. This is a consequence of regulatory failure, though.
You can call it failure, but it's serving someone that engineered it. This isn't merely a failure to act or an unforeseen consequence, intentional choices have been made that knowingly trade human well-being for commercial interests. This is government serving capital interests before humanity or its own citizens.
I say it's specifically regulatory capture because of the way one regulatory body is defeating protections provided by another one. The dangerous and popular class of vehicles exist to thwart regulations that apply to what was previously considered normal-sized vehicles. If they could they would have just done away with the regulations, but they are limited to their captured offices' authority.
Sure, it is a failure from the perspective of public interest. It isn't an accident.
I dunno, man. From where I sit, our governments look like systems designed to facilitate the extraction and exploitation of value from natural and human resources for the benefit of capital enterprise. From THAT perspective, it's neither a failure nor an accident.
Well according to the numbers its clear that instead of dying overseas they are coming to the US to get run over /s
It's insane how terrible our oversized suvs and trucks have gotten. There is a 12 foot blind spot in front of many of them now where you can't see someone sitting down or a small child.
Absolutely insanity.
How the F did US jumped up in 2020? Did the cars start to run into buildings to make up for the diferance in pedestrian trafic?
In 2020, the pedestrian traffic changed from commuting to lots of people going out on daily walks, often in areas that aren't set up for pedestrians. I'm guessing that's a contributing factor.
People went fucking nuts that year
Only that year?
There was a build up before, like they were in training. 2020 flipped a switch and now they're pros being nuts.
They just stayed nuts after. Cops stopped doing anything (except murdering people, of course). Nobody cares.
Where I live in the suburbs ebikes have also gotten a lot more popular over the past few years
"I don't care! I need bigger pickup truck regardless of the cost to society. Make 'em bigger, boys!! Fuck standards and fuck regulations! Human life is cheap anyways.".
Feel like this will not be a popular take here, but hear me out: I blame safety regs. Crash test standards ensconce drivers deep within a dense cage of beefy reinforced pillars and crumple zones, while "driver assists" make them complacent and disengaged. Modern people movers have worse visibility than an old farm truck and massive touchscreens you have to use to operate the windshield wipers. Peak car was like a quarter century ago, bring back the 1994 Honda Civic. The hatch specifically, that thing was dope. At least you'd notice if you hit someone in one of those
You do know that all the other countries have the same issues you just mentioned, and there, the numbers are going down rather than up.
Edit: I guess they've been going up in Europe after COVID as well.
I would attribute that delay at least in part to the "cash for clunkers" program, which took older vehicles off the road en masse in 2009 in the US specifically. Made number go up but life a little worse, like most things we do :(
e: in case the correlation isn't clear (or you just don't feel like clicking), the program offered government subsidized and highly inflated trade in values for vehicles over a certain age and under a certain fuel economy. This greatly benefited auto manufacturers and investors at the direct expense of taxpayers and used car buyers by using government funding to essentially purchase and destroy ~half of the used car market at the time, depending who you ask.
How did they go up in 2020 in the us
This is a very good question. Naively one would think that the pandemic would cut the number of miles driven and therefore fatalities.
However, I also recall that after lockdowns there was a clear drop in driving skills due to a lack of practice which may have offset The lower vehicle miles.
But why increasing over the prior period? I have a theory you're not going to like.
Demands for safer (for vehicle occupants), and more aerodynamic profiles, lead to giant angled framing in the cabin that sits exactly in the worst place to create a blind spot for pedestrians.
If it's going to increase you have to blame something that changed.
As someone without a car in the US, I am obviously pro-urban pedestrian infrastructure. We need more and better busses, and far more walking / biking options that keep us away from cars entirely. If you can't walk from any one place to any other in a city, that's two or more cities in a trench coat, you know?
I do wonder what a graph of average driven hours would do to this chart. Per 100,000 people of course shows more are dying per person. But if US citizens drive twice the total hours(completely made up number) as those in other countries, then we would actually have less pedestrian deaths per driven hour no?
While I do agree that we probably have less "per hour driven" I think this metric is important because it still reflects the danger to the average person. If I get hit by a car it's not going to make me feel any better to know "that person was driving for a really long time before they hit you".
Factually it's an interesting metric. But it doesn't make pedestrians feel any safer
On the other hand, the US has far fewer people walking around than those other countries, and this is per capita, not per 100k pedestrians
per hours driven our per km driven is a car centric misleading number for many purposes. That is because car centric planning increases the distances one needs to drive, without creating additional value. Going to the supermarket doesn't get any better just because the supermarket is double as far away. So the per 100,000 people number is a better representation.
Of course, people having to drive longer and further also means higher risk of deaths and accidents but that is just a compounding issue caused by car centric design itself. It is part of the problem, not some externalised factor that should be compensated for.
There are still too many people who forgot how to drive during pandemic.
For example, just the other day my dog was almost murdered because some idiot came zooming around the bend and “stopped” well past the crosswalk we were in. At an all-way stop sign. With cars already stopped.
As both a pedestrian and on the road, I've almost gotten killed on my bike so many times I'm surprised I'm not dead yet
that's a problem that will fix itself when there are no more pedestrians left
Just for a better understanding, it would ve interested to see how the share of pedestrians developed in that time. Did decrease, remain similar or even increase?
Isn't this largely to do with American car safety standards focusing only on the occupants of the car, rather than both the occupants and other people? Isn't the Cybertruck rated as one of the safest vehicles by US standards but is considered to dangerous to be driven on most European roads for this reason?
There is no evaluation of the Cybertruck in the EU, but your general description is not entirely wrong. Tesla never even tried to make that ztash can street legal in the EU, knowing that their front facing stainless steel blades have no chance because they are insane from a pedestrian safety perspective and their are rules that forbid that.
Safety authorities and regulators in the US obviously don't care much about the life of pedestrians. If they did, the Cyvertruck would not be street legal in its current form.
Who is the genius that choose to make a gray scale instead of different colors
i mean, those plebs pedestrians and kids just walking around are basically asking for it /s
The only way to stop a bad driver with a truck is a good pedistrian with a truck.
That's more or less the sales pitch for bigger and bigger vehicles; "Protect your family from big vehicles by buying a bigger vehicle today!"
It's interesting to me that Italians have such a terrible reputation for being dangerous on the roads, and even at the start of the graph period they had lower pedestrian fatalities than the USA.
It IS that bad. However, when compared to the US, there are safety measures in place here that allow us to survive even if the drivers are awful.
To be fair, it's anecdotical, but considering the amount of craziness I see every day in my city, i'm amazed at the low amount of deaths.
That reputation is understated, but I think it's still a more walkable country in general.
US is really crushing it!
US is crushing something. Pedestrians and cyclists, it seems.
Sidebar, what's up with the data unavailable and then the data on the graph?
Looks like it's just 2024 specifically that's unavailable for Germany and UK.
The data is a snip straight from the Wall Street Journal. I provided the link.
I remember when roundabouts started to proliferate in the last 10-15 years and how there's an uproar every time a town builds a new one... but clearly it's an imperative to design roads in a way that is deliberately inconvenient and forces carbrains to fucking pay attention.
I see roundabouts as a mixed thing. For many car oriented places they are indeed a much better design. They can be made ok for pedestrians but especially without traffic lights (or on streets with very light or very slow traffic) they tend to be more dangerous as many car drivers exiting round abouts are appearing quite suddenly and are often too fast, even if there is a pedestrian crossing. Many round abouts don't have priorty for pedestrian to start with. Ireland had a lot of absolutely terrible roundabouts for pedestrians at least a decade ago. I don't know if it got any better. Lots of traffic, no priority for pedestrians, fairly high speeds. It always felt as if you had to run for your life when crossing the road there.
Paywall