Pedestrian-vehicle collisions tend to be particularly devastating, because the human body is no match for the momentum of a thousands of pounds of rolling metal. Indeed, the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports nearly 5,000 deaths from pedestrian-vehicle collisions in 2013, with tens of thousands of injuries. Due to the seriousness of the injuries involved, verdicts and settlements in pedestrian accident lawsuits tend to be quite high.
Primary Causes of Pedestrian Accidents
Pedestrian accidents are almost always preventable, and a handful of primary causes are responsible for most of them. Some of these causes are attributable to drivers, while others are attributable to pedestrians. The “dirty dozen” primary causes of pedestrian accidents are listed below:
- Intoxicated drivers or pedestrians
- Distracted drivers or pedestrians (primarily due to cell phone use)
- Jaywalking
- Skateboarding (especially weaving between cars)
- Bicycling on the sidewalk
- Failure to observe traffic signals
- Failure to yield the right-of-way
- Reckless behavior by unsupervised children
- Exiting a parked car into oncoming traffic
- Walking across the path of a car that is backing out of a parking space
- Wandering into traffic without looking (especially children and college students)
- Poor road conditions that increase stopping distances
Obvious Ways to Reduce Pedestrian-Vehicle Accidents
Most of the obvious ways of reducing pedestrian accidents boil down to observing existing rules and safety precautions:
- Raise public awareness of the frequency and preventability of pedestrian accidents
- Strictly enforce jaywalking and right-of-way laws by ticketing offenders without exception
- Add audio signals and timers to pedestrian signals (already implemented in many jurisdictions
- Place more emphasis on pedestrian safety principles in driver’s license testing
- Strictly supervise congested intersections during peak hours
- Install warning signs and lower the speed limits around college campuses and other venues that experience high pedestrian traffic
San Francisco’s Vision Zero Program: A Model for the Nation?
Faced with a rash of pedestrian accidents, the city of San Francisco decided to take a more scientific approach to preventing pedestrian accidents. The program began with a 43-week study that experimented with various combinations of policy initiatives at selected intersections, and then compared the resulting accident rates with the accident rates at intersections for which no policy initiatives were implemented. This enabled city planners to determine which combinations of policy initiatives would be most effective citywide.
Ultimately, San Francisco was able to significantly reduce pedestrian accidents by means of the following policy initiatives, targeted at historically dangerous intersections:
- Placing public service advertisements on city buses traveling targeted routes and erecting billboards on roads leading to problematic intersections
- Distributing pamphlets and flyers through community groups who were recruited to raise public awareness
- Implementing a “zero tolerance” policy towards drivers who fail to yield the right-of-way
Attorney Josh Tucker with the Birmingham law firm of Jackson & Tucker, P.C., commented: “The Vision Zero program in San Francisco is a good start and has been effective. Personally, I would like to see pedestrian safety programs like Vision Zero implemented in Birmingham and throughout Alabama.”
The Way Forward
Preventing pedestrian accidents is certainly superior to using the legal system to compensate victims after the accidents have already occurred. In the meantime, however, injured pedestrians and grieving relatives deserve compensation for their easily preventable losses. Effectively enforcing your right to compensation in the aftermath of an accident is one important way to deter careless drivers from playing Russian roulette with the lives of pedestrians.
