Deadliest for Walkers: Male Drivers, Left Turns

[Liberal_in_LA]

Deadliest for Walkers: Male Drivers, Left Turns




By MICHAEL M. GRYNBAUM
Published: August 16, 2010

It has never been easy to safely navigate the streets of New York, where today automobiles zip inches away from smartphone-carrying pedestrians and the footrace across an intersection seems like a human version of the arcade game Frogger.

"Crosswalks in NYC are about as effective as traffic lights are in Beirut - meaning they are pointless. I can't tell you how many times I have been cutoff or almost hit by a motorist while pushing my toddler in a stroller. "

But a report released Monday by the city’s transportation planners offers unusual insights into the precarious life on the city’s streets, pinpointing where, when and why pedestrian accidents have most often occurred. The study confirms some of the century-old assumptions about transportation in the country’s biggest city, yet it undercuts others.

Taxis, it turns out, are not a careering menace: cabs, along with buses and trucks, accounted for far fewer pedestrian accidents in Manhattan than did private automobiles. Jaywalkers were involved in fewer collisions than their law-abiding counterparts who waited for the “walk” sign, though they were likelier to be killed or seriously hurt by the collision.

And in 80 percent of city accidents that resulted in a pedestrian’s death or serious injury, a male driver was behind the wheel. (Fifty-seven percent of New York City vehicles are registered to men.)


http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/17/nyregion/17walk.html?src=me&ref=general

[customerserviceguy]

1. Just one of the thousand reasons

I won't drive in NYC. It's mass disorder, cars going where they shouldn't, pedestrians jaywalking against red lights.

Pure anarchy.

[Canuckistanian]

4. I like Jerry Seinfeld's explanation of NYC driving rules

"Stop signs are useless. You might as well put up a sign that says, "If you were thinking about stopping.... here would be a good place to do it"

[snagglepuss]

14. I've never heard that line. That's hysterical. nt

[REP]

15. It's pure pleasure compared to San Francisco

For one thing, NY streets are a hell of a lot wider!

[customerserviceguy]

19. Another town that I was glad there was good public transportation!

In that case, I let my California-born wife drive when we visited SF, she didn't mind at all, had learned to drive in the Los Angeles area!

[snagglepuss]

2. You have hit my pet peeve. I think pedestrians deserve 90% of the blame.

And guess what I don't own a car. I have spent my life commuting by bike, 10 to 15 miles a day round trips through downtown traffic with no accident other than one time narrowly missing a kid who ran out from between parked cars. (The kid was fine and so was I but my front wheel was destroyed because I had to veer into a parked semi).

Anyway besides touching wood and thanking the powers that be that I haven't had a serious accident, I explain my safe driving record on being hyper diligent, my head is always turning side to side, checking traffic continually and I'm like that walking. However I am in a minority. I can't tell you how many cyclists and pedestrians I see who waltz across roads without ever checking traffic. I've witnessed near death close calls because people seem to think that they don't have to bother being alert.


Look at the photo, do you see any pedestrian checking over their left shoulder as they cross the street? If I was in that intersection my head would be moving like a pendulum making sure some idiot wasn't planning to accelerate into a turn.

Besides this pet peeve, I have a pet theory and that 90% of tension headaches emanating from tense neck and shoulders muscles would disappear if people would turn their frigging heads more often instead of marching down the streets like zombie automatons.

Evidently these numbskulls who needlessly endanger themselves make me wery wery angwy.

[Gormy Cuss]

8. Yeah, and the data don't support your pet peeve.

In most cases the pedestrians aren't to blame, it's the numbskull drivers.

[snagglepuss]

13. I read the data, the data says no such thing because unless cameras

were set up on each corner who is to know if a pedestrian was paying attention and as far as I know testimony isn't taken from a corpse. Don't take my word, next time your out and about, hoofing it down the street pause and count how many people check over their left shoulders crossing an intersection. And if you decide to do so, I suggest you bring a sandwich and coffee because it'll be a long while before someone,with enough smarts to know that their neck swivels and has enough energy to make use of that handy function, comes trotting by.

[quinnox]

3. Always assume its an idiot in the car

I walk a lot, and I always assume the driver doesn't see me.

And the statistics about it being male drivers at fault most of the time doesn't surprise me, why would they bother checking their mirrors, a lot of them think they are kings of the road, how dare anyone get in their way.

[Kaleva]

5. The statistics concerning male drivers...

are somewhat skewed in my opinion. While I have no doubt that male drivers are involved in about 80% of the accidents, the fact that 57% of vehicles in NYC are registered to men doesn't mean that only about 57% of the drivers on NYC streets at any one time are men. My guess is that the percentage would be much higher. Maybe even close to 80% which would mean that male drivers are no more dangerous to pedestrians then women drivers are.

[MadMaddie]

12. I always stop and make sure all cars stop.

I don't make an assumption that they will stop.

[happyslug]

6. We always joked in the City of Pittsburgh, Jaywalkers are never hit,...

Drivers in Pittsburgh NEVER hit jaywalkers. It just does NOT happen. Pittsburgh is a Jaywalking capital of the world, we avoid intersections and crosswalks like the plague most of them are. One of the reason for this is that when Pittsburgh was settled, the street designer was asked by some people to move one of his proposed streets so there would not have to move their log cabin. He Obliged for he though Pittsburgh would be nothing by a distant outpost for Philadelphia. Thus Philadelphia is a much better designed city then the City of Pittsburgh, even through Pittsburgh was designed 100 years later.

The old joke about downtown Pittsburgh was it was designed for you to take your canoe to, tie it along the river bank and walk into town. Streetcars were a good retrofit, Cars were a bad retrofit.

The last two pedestrians who were killed in Downtown Pittsburgh made the fatal mistake, they were crossing at a cross walk with the walk sign on. The bus driver who hit them never saw them. Had they been jaywalking everyone would have seen them. It is just how the city of Pittsburgh Streets are.

[lumberjack_jeff]

7. Extrapolating; Men drive about 70% of the miles.

If 57% of the cars belong to men, and since (nationwide) men drive 16,800 miles per year compared to 10,100 for women, a conservative estimate is that 70% of the cars that drive by a given point in NYC are driven by men.

And when my wife and I expect to be driving in traffic, she insists I drive.

In short, I doubt that the 80% is reflective of anything other than men do most of the driving in NYC.

[girl gone mad]

9. nationwide men drive 16,800 miles per year compared to 10,100 for women..

How much of this gap is due to over-representation of men in trucking?

Saying 57% of cars are owned by men isn't the same as saying 57% of the cars are driven by men. I drove a car owned by my dad for a few years. Right now my uncle's car is on loan to one of my female friends.

I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss idea that men are more likely to hit pedestrians. I've been in the passenger seat with a male driver on many occasions where I've had to point out cyclists or pedestrians that they just didn't seem to notice. Not sure what that's about, but it's happened enough to make me wonder.

[Kaleva]

10. My wife owns the car but she has me drive. Always.

She prefers being able to look at the sights we pass by, take a nap, do her hair and stuff while I concentrate on the driving. Last time she drove when we were in the car together was over a year ago when she was driving me to the emergency room.

[lumberjack_jeff]

16. Yes, my wife has pointed out deer and pedestrians to me too.

Nevertheless, there's still a reason she chose the passenger seat.

The data was from the national household transportation survey (excludes commercial driving) but it's a couple of years old. Both genders drove less last year. 9,960 for women vs 12,610 for men.

But your observation shows that my post is conservative. The pedestrian accidents included those involving commercial drivers, who are predominately men.

http://nhts.ornl.gov/index.shtml

The data.

http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/10/who-drives-better-men-or-women/

Women are involved in more accidents per mile driven.

[MadMaddie]

11. We have a lot of car pedestrian fatalities in the Seattle area....

[Johonny]

17. Of course in LA half the city doesn't believe in left turn arrows

So you end up trying to turn left through 3 lanes of on coming traffic while hoping the intersection is also clear of people when the traffic has a magic parting.

[L0oniX]

18. Think it's bad there? Try riding a bicycle in a Florida city.

[Donnachaidh]

20. hey - in a city where people joke about *points* and what pedestrians are higher on the scale

Can you really be surprised about these statistics?

:rofl:

[ThomCat]

21. Hey, you joke about that.

I'm a pedestrian in an electric wheelchair. Do you have any idea how many points I'm worth? :wow:

I wouldn't doubt that it's a real part of the problem. :P