Month: September 2009

Each year, approximately 900 pediatric pedestrians younger than 19 years are killed. In addition, 51000 children are injured as pedestrians, and 5300 of them are hospitalized because of their injuries.
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Driver Characteristics
Driver characteristics also contribute to child pedestrian injuries. Male drivers, drivers younger than 40 years, and those with a record of multiple driving infractions and suspended or revoked licenses are more likely to be involved in a collision with a child pedestrian.50,51 Two studies performed by the National Safe Kids campaign show that large numbers of drivers speed and fail to stop at stop signs in school zones
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Driver Education and Enforcement
Although pedestrian advocates recommend driver-education programs to remedy dangerous driving, there is little research regarding interventions aimed at improving driver knowledge, attitudes, or skills to avoid pedestrian crashes. Furthermore, a study that looked at state driver’s license manuals showed that most of these publications had no information about common locations for pedestrian-vehicle conflicts, automobile movements that are most hazardous for pedestrians, safest ways to conduct turns, or requirements for yielding to pedestrians at stop signs and intersections.58 One 4-year program that combined a media campaign with strong police enforcement of crosswalk laws did not result in drivers becoming more willing to stop for pedestrians.59
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Walkability Checklists
The Partnership for a Walkable America (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Federal Highway Administration, Institute of Transportation Engineers, Pedestrian and Bicycle Information Center, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation) advises the use of a "walkability checklist," available on the Internet,85 to score the walkability of a community and identify the safest pedestrian routes for children. For each type of pedestrian problem, the checklist outlines specific strategies to help individuals and community groups who want to create safe walking routes for children. Formal evaluation of the ability of such checklists to decrease pediatric pedestrian injury is lacking.
Continue reading “Pedestrian Safety”

Abuse of power and social control is a far greater threat than cars and cigarettes, argues Michael McFadden
I believe motorists should be treated just as fairly as smokers. Taxes should be roughly triple the cost of the basic litre of fuel and hospital campuses should be car-free with parking available a minimum of four blocks away to encourage healthy exercise and avoid physical threat to normal non-driving visitors and patients.
Children should be taught that if their parents love them they won’t insist on driving them around in pollutomobiles, leaving them off at school stinking of petrol fumes and all the lovely chemicals that make up that delightful “new car smell”. College scholarships can be offered to those students who remain “car-free” to graduation, and employers can restrict job openings to non-drivers only.
Surgeons should refuse operations to accident victims who refuse to sign a legal commitment to surrender their drivers’ licenses and significant speed bumps should be put at every intersection to discourage automotive commuting.
Continue reading “Highway to hell: control the car”