by David Alpert
Pedestrian fatalities stopped declining in early 2010. Unfortunately, a safety nonprofit and its chairman, Maryland’s highway safety head, chose to blame pedestrians for getting killed while downplaying other, equally important causes.
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The press release also ignores the report’s recommendations that government do more to design safer roads. Perhaps that’s not a surprise since the organization comprises state highway safety officials who have done little to even admit to, let alone address, their governments’ complicity in these pedestrian deaths.
In his writeup of the report, the Post’s Ashley Halsey III buys into Betkey’s narrative wholesale. He talks about how many fatalities in Prince George’s and Fairfax counties, in particular, involve crossings at night, away from crosswalks.
But missing in this discussion is the question of why people are trying to cross dark roads where there are no crosswalks. In many busy areas of those counties, there are shopping centers along multi-lane arterials with poor lighting and long distances without crosswalks. If someone on foot wants to get to one of those stores and isn’t in a car, they have few alternatives. The pedestrian could be more careful, but also the government could be putting in better streetlights, crosswalks, and traffic signals.
To frame his piece, Halsey cites a fatality in Landover which did involve a signalized crosswalk. According to the article, the pedestrian signal was flashing the red "don’t walk" hand icon, during which time three teenagers ran across the road. A driver hit and killed 15-year-old Wayne Cuffy. Halsey’s piece is dripping with accusations against Cuffy:
>>> "It is the kind of risk teenagers take: darting across six lanes of traffic, paying no mind to the flashing sign warning pedestrians to await the green light. Wayne Cuffy and his buddies bolted across Landover Road on their way to the mall Tuesday night, a mistake that cost the 15-year-old his life when he stepped in front of a Ford Expedition at Dodge Park Road. … It was dark, and rush hour was winding down when they dashed into traffic toward the mall. Cuffy was struck just after he left the curb."
But wait. The signal was flashing the red hand. That means the traffic light was red for cross traffic. For the driver to hit Cuffy, the driver had to have run the red light (added: or made a turn without yielding).
Yet there’s absolutely no mention of this fact in Halsey’s article. Who’s really at fault: a teenager who hurries to get across the road before the light changes, but while cross traffic has still got the red light, or the driver who hits him despite the red light?
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https://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/8906/maryland-road-safety-head-posts-halsey-blame-pedestrians-and-even-michelle-obama-for-fatalities/oldId.20110128225213211
Biking in Baltimore