PEDESTRIAN FATALITIES
Accidents, fatalities are on the rise nationwide; 10 deaths in city this year
Pedestrian fatalities are rising in the nation. In Memphis this year, 10 pedestrians have died after being struck by cars.
A man was killed when he was hit by a car as he attempted to cross Lamar and David on June 29.
Ten days earlier, a woman was struck by a car and then run over by another car as she attempted to cross Jackson at Ronnie.
To date, 10 people have been hit and killed by vehicles in the city of Memphis this year.
The percentage of pedestrian deaths nationwide is increasing.
In 2013, more than 4,700 people died in the United States after being struck by vehicles while walking. The National Highway Safety Administration estimates another 66,000 Americans were injured when they were hit by a car. Although the number of overall traffic fatalities is declining, the percentage of pedestrian deaths is increasing.
In Memphis, the largest number of pedestrian deaths was 30 in 2013. Last year, 23 pedestrians were killed. On average, 15 pe- destrians are killed each year in Memphis.
Transportation for America, a national traffic safety coalition, released a study in 2014 ranking the danger to pedestrians in the country’s metro areas on its Pedestrian Danger Index. The PDI is based on the relationship of pedestrian fatalities to the percent of residents walking to work.
Among the nation’s largest metro areas, Memphis ranked fifth most dangerous.
Maj. Samuel Hines with the police department’s traffic division said it is difficult to pinpoint why, but he believes one reason is distracted drivers and pedestrians.
“So you have this recipe for disaster because nobody is paying attention,” Hines said. “A lot of times the pedestrian and the drivers assume the other one saw the other one. We also have so many distractions at our fingertips from headphones to our cellphones to other digital devices.”
He added that many pedestrians in Memphis do not cross at the crosswalks.
“I went through 30 reports of critical accidents involving pedestrians and saw that there was only one report where the pedestrian used the crosswalk,” Hines said.
The time of day also appears to be a factor: Most pedestrian accidents in Memphis happen between 3 and 8 p.m.
The top three streets where the most pedestrian accidents occurred last year were Elvis Presley Boulevard with 18 and
Summer and Lamar with 11 each, Hines said.
Kyle Wagenschutz, the city’s Bikeway/Pedestrian Program manager, said the city has a $200 million, 20-year action plan to improve pedestrian safety in the city on a long-term scale.
“So we looked at this whole host of data and essentially created a prioritization of projects thatwould be spread out over 20 years, to a total cost of about $200 million,” Wagenschutz said.
He added, “We don’t have it fully fleshed out how we are going to pay for it. It would more than likely be a combination of grant funding, philanthropic funding and city funding. We now have a vision and a plan to move forward with everything from making aging crosswalks more visible to improving sidewalks and making pedestrian infrastructure better, sowe can create an environment where we can encourage people to be safe while they are walking or riding their bicycles in the city.”
Already the city has received $3 million infederal transportation funding to fix sidewalks to improve intersections, Wagenschutz said.
“While we have made some noble attempts in the past to address specific issues around ... safety for pedestrians, we were lacking, in my opinion, the bigger-picture vision,” Wagenschutz said. “What this pedestrian action plan does is set us up for some long-term success. It provides us a framework togo by so we are not guessing on what projects we need to tackle.”