Walking Shouldn’t Be So Dangerous in the US

Scientific American – “…According to data analyzed by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention researchers in the latest Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, about 20 pedestrians are killed each day in the U.S. by someone driving a car. That was 7,522 pedestrians in 2022. Those researchers note that other countries’ pedestrian fatality rates are going down. Ours is really not. This is absurd. We should be able to walk in the U.S. without the fear of getting mowed down. But we can’t, largely because the problem has now become an ideological turf war. We cannot tamper with car culture, never mind its role in fueling climate change. People in rural areas do not walk, goes the thinking, so why do they need sidewalks? Never mind that 7.5 percent of rural residents said they do as a form of transportation, and 56 percent said they did for leisure. And as is often the case in this country, if an issue affects people who are poor, or not white, it’s not a problem worth solving. We need to stop hitting people with our cars. To make this happen, the culture shift we need has to come from everywhere—public officials, drivers, automakers and government agencies. The U.S. Department of Transportation describes this as a Safe System Approach—everyone working together to reduce car-related fatalities. And it makes sense…”