San Francisco’s Vision Zero data suggest that in recent years, motorists were at fault in most pedestrian deaths by car. Still, some readers think city safety measures do more to inconvenience drivers than to protect those on foot.
My first guess would be that pedestrian improvements are inducing more people to walk, and the increase in total pedestrians is offsetting the improvements in per-pedestrian safety.
Alternate take: All the laws and traffic calming measures in the world do no good if the city has enough motorists and pedestrians who habitually flout them.
Assuming there are some law-abiding pedestrians as well as measure-flouting ones, we would expect to see some reduction in pedestrian deaths if all else remained equal. If we don’t see that, it suggests that something else is actively changing to offset the expected benefit.
My first guess would be that pedestrian improvements are inducing more people to walk, and the increase in total pedestrians is offsetting the improvements in per-pedestrian safety.
Alternate take: All the laws and traffic calming measures in the world do no good if the city has enough motorists and pedestrians who habitually flout them.
Assuming there are some law-abiding pedestrians as well as measure-flouting ones, we would expect to see some reduction in pedestrian deaths if all else remained equal. If we don’t see that, it suggests that something else is actively changing to offset the expected benefit.
You’re starting with the unproved assumption that the new laws actually improve safety for some part of the population.
Law abiding citizens don’t benefit from piling on extra laws.
The law breakers never followed them anyway.
How about taking away blame on either motorists and pedestrians, and putting it all down to risk:
The more cars and the more pedestrians that you put together in an urban area, the more pedestrian car accidents are just bound to happen.
Reduce either of those numbers, and the number of pedestrian car accidents goes down.