Pedestrian killing spree in Detroit

[O3H]

Detroit No. 1 in pedestrians killed by automobiles

And yet, some people don't want cameras in the city for survelliance, safety and social justice ????

https://www.metrotimes.com/news-hits...by-automobiles

https://www.freep.com/story/news/201...ame/585379002/

[dtowncitylover]

JESUS CHRIST. Pick a better title! I thought we had one of the those "Car mows down people" attacks downtown or something! Of the course the title is a bit uncouth for that.

[DetroitSoldier]

Nice click bait title. That's all I have for this.

[O3H]

I'm an atheist so the JESUS CHRIST thing just doesn't affect me.

It would be nice to catch some license plates on camera and prosecute

[48202]

The first sentence of the Metro Times article is not true.

The chart in the Free Press article is a classic case of “How to lie with statistics”.

[O3H]

The fact remains - pedestrians are ending up DEAD -

Exactly how many, isn't really the issue.
People don't stop, are unaware they hit someone, etc.

https://www.ghsa.org/resources/spotlight-pedestrians18

https://www.npr.org/2017/03/30/52208...estrian-deaths

[48202]

None of the referenced articles mention hit and runs. Is this topic personal to you?

[iheartthed]

There's a simple solution to this but drivers aren't gonna like it. Lower speed limits and more traffic calming measures.

I heard that the mayor was considering scrapping the bike lanes, which is the exact opposite of what should happen, so I doubt this will improve much any time soon.

[O3H]

It all goes hand-in-hand for pedestrian deaths via hit-and-run

Most victims of fatal hit-and-run crashes are pedestrians or bicyclists.
Over the past 10 years, nearly 20 percent of all
pedestrian deaths were caused by hit-and-run crashes,

https://newsroom.aaa.com/2018/04/hit...t-record-high/

https://www.clickondetroit.com/traff...te-on-us-roads

https://www.wired.com/story/pedestri...h-rates-climb/

It's all around us, in various media outlets, social circles, etc.

Is anyone actually reading news and thinking for themselves
or does it truly all have to be spoon fed in a """snippet"""" ?

People are dying in Detroit and it isn't always via a handgun/pistol.
Add in the massive desire by many for more POT stoners,
pedestrian and vehicular - who will be ""distracted"", uh yeah !!!

It's not even a NEW story - been going on for years - with zero outrage
From 2014 the Pedestrian Death Toll has been brewing
http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article...ans-new-report
http://www.crainsdetroit.com/print/603751

[Jason]

imo there needs to be a team 100% dedicated to evaluating problem spots and improving them. For a city where so many people walk and take the bus, the pedestrian experience is terrible. There's a lot of "creative" traffic engineering, crumbling sidewalks, crumbling roads, wide roads, bad drivers, infrequent crosswalks. That's not even counting things like comfortably wide sidewalks and street trees.

[48202]

Distracted drivers hitting distracted pedestrians. We're not outraged because oh, I just got a txt.

[Gistok]

Smartphone usage is to blame for quite a bit of the uptick. This is true for both drivers and pedestrians. Also, Detroiters have a tendency to walk in the street even in areas where the sidewalks are perfectly fine. This was the case in my late mothers neighborhood near Balduck Park. The perfectly fine sidewalks were generally empty, with walking in the street the preferred method of pedestrian transport.

[Maof]

Distracted drivers hitting distracted pedestrians. We're not outraged because oh, I just got a txt.

A sheriff was recently interviewed on the news a week or so ago about distracted driving. He discussed the typical texting and driving, eating and putting makeup on behind the wheel. The one that caught me off guard was that he pulled someone over for having his phone attached to the steering wheel with velcro and watching Netflix!

[Colombian Dan]

No big deal.. Royal Oak police officer ran over and killed a man pushing his stalled car.. oh and the officer was texting on her cell phone... in the end it's only money....and the officer kept her job....
http://www.dailytribune.com/article/...NEWS/309149993

[O3H]

A high tech metropolis like Detroit should have more cameras

https://www.detroitnews.com/story/ne...run/531500002/

https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/cit...y-cameras-data

[iheartthed]

Smartphone usage is to blame for quite a bit of the uptick. This is true for both drivers and pedestrians. Also, Detroiters have a tendency to walk in the street even in areas where the sidewalks are perfectly fine.

I don't think either of these are the issue. New York has both cell phones and tons of people walking in the street, but the pedestrian death rate has gone down. New York lowered the speed limit city wide and installed a ton of bike lanes, speed bumps, and pedestrian plazas.

[preserve]

A lot of the problem is the pedestrians themselves. Try driving down Michigan Ave, near the Rosa Parks Bus Station....they walk right out into the street, from both sides, they pay no attention to oncoming cars. What ever happened to teaching folks how to cross - you know - use your eyes, your ears and then use your feet.

[O3H]

Is the City of Detroit committed to reduce pedestrian deaths ?

Other cities appear to be
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/l...228-story.html

[Scottathew]

JESUS CHRIST. Pick a better title! I thought we had one of the those "Car mows down people" attacks downtown or something! Of the course the title is a bit uncouth for that.

I thought the same exact thing.


Up by my place I remember a fatal pedestrian incident last year on John R south of Square Lake.

People have odd street crossing strategies in Detroit and beyond.

[Towne Cluber]

I don't think either of these are the issue. New York has both cell phones and tons of people walking in the street, but the pedestrian death rate has gone down. New York lowered the speed limit city wide and installed a ton of bike lanes, speed bumps, and pedestrian plazas.

New York has tons of people walking on the SIDEWALKS.

[O3H]

And for those that actually walked downtown NY,
the intense sound of taxi engines revving up,
as the street lights change, and cars go from
street to street, is a deterrent in and of itself.
A New Yorker "walks" quickly, efficiently,
and in a very timely manner thru an intersection.

Detroit seems to have folks taking their sweet ol' time

[detroitsgwenivere]

A lot of the problem is the pedestrians themselves. Try driving down Michigan Ave, near the Rosa Parks Bus Station....they walk right out into the street, from both sides, they pay no attention to oncoming cars. What ever happened to teaching folks how to cross - you know - use your eyes, your ears and then use your feet.

Yeah, ain't this the truth. Every day on my way home is like playing the game Frogger at that spot except I'm the car avoiding the frogs.

Another culprit to our pedestrian death woes:

http://www.msn.com/en-us/autos/autos...ehM?ocid=ientp


I was hit by a car once while crossing the street. The man was under the influence but not enough to garner an arrest, and when he went to get out of the car to see if I was still alive [[unconscious in a pool of blood looking way worse off than I was), one of my friends threatened him with a knife. I felt bad that this happened, and since I'm pretty hard headed and managed to walk away without any life threatening injuries, I didn't pursue any further action. I learned a valuable lesson that day... eyes and ears, just like Preserve says.

[bust]

I can't help but respond to the comments about pedestrians in NY.

Jaywalking is not less of a problem there, it's much worse. Less so in tourist areas where cops are ubiquitous and places where the width of avenues and the rush of the car traffic require better behavior. But in most of the city there aren't cops on every corner, the streets are narrower, and it's a chaos of jaywalkers, cyclists, skateboarders, double-parked cars and trucks, and delivery guys riding the wrong way on a one-way street. Besides tourists, basically only parents with small children respect the crosswalks, and not all do. People filter through stopped cars to the other side of the street. It happens less now where gentrification really took hold but it's still not uncommon for jaywalkers in the neighborhoods to expect moving car traffic to stop for them, not the other way around. I can't count how many times I've seen a jaywalker cuss out a driver for not stopping sufficiently distant from their knees as they strolled across the street mid-block without care.

New York is safer for pedestrians not because people obey the law better, but because drivers there expect someone or something to force them to stop or swerve at any moment. Your foot is always ready for the brake pedal. Fewer accidents happen because drivers are much more vigilant on the road.

Backing this up, a 2009 study showed there's greater cycling safety in greater numbers. Cyclists are at the greatest risk where and when drivers don't expect to encounter them. I think it's analogous:

Safety in Numbers: It’s Happening in NYC
https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2009/06/...pening-in-nyc/

Meanwhile that report is from 2009, bike ridership in NYC has roughly doubled since then, and the rate of bike accidents has been plummeting steadily along with that:

NYC Department of Transportation Bicyclist Network and Statistics
http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/bic...dership-safety



I stopped looking before I found a chart showing more recent statistics, but here's a chart showing the trend of NYC cycling ridership up to 2014:



But it's not just safety in numbers of course. Like iheartthed said, New York has also been heavily investing in more and better bike lanes and other traffic calming solutions. Meanwhile cops have started to ticket cyclists who disobey the rules, just like motorists -- even if both still break the rules fairly regularly. DeBlasio has been cracking down on jaywalking too. There have been efforts to improve NYC traffic behavior, regardless of mode. But behavior is definitely not better than in Detroit.

It was a comedy the one and only time my family from Detroit visited NYC by car. They caused so many problems on the road they probably had more angry people honking and yelling at them that trip than they encountered the rest of their lives. And not because they were doing anything wrong, but because they were following the driving guidelines to the letter.... Staying in their lanes, stopping rather than swerving to avoid obstructions, leaving ample space between them and the car in front of them, slowing not accelerating at yellow lights... They've never returned with a car since.

It may seem counterintuitive, but because everyone else is doing it, it's safer to mix with the flow of tailgaters and swerving lane-crossers than to drive the way we're taught in driving school. It gets more cars through the lights before they change. And at least in NY, you'll hear less honking and see fewer middle fingers along your way too.

Back to Detroit, traffic calming measures would help just the same. So would better lighting, better signage, better sidewalks, better upkeep in general, and higher density -- for better safety. It would help regulate traffic downtown and maybe it would no longer be customary in the neighborhoods to walk in the middle of the street.

Lastly, the title of this thread. It's beyond clickbait; it's irresponsible. What up O3H? Please measure your alarm with more thoughtful moderation. There are problems, but the sky is not falling. Be well.

[O3H]

You mean if people CARE - less people die - you don't say

I will not regurgitate a news article word for word, title and all.
Simple parroting and mirroring a story is pretty worthless.
If the title made you THINK, it was all worth it.

[iheartthed]

Meanwhile cops have started to ticket cyclists who disobey the rules, just like motorists -- even if both still break the rules fairly regularly. DeBlasio has been cracking down on jaywalking too.

I got a ticket while biking in New York last year during one of the initiatives to bring more awareness to bicycle safety. I forgot the exact amount of the ticket, but it was somewhere in the $250 neighborhood.

Jaywalking will probably be a lot tougher to crackdown on. I think the way that the way jaywalking laws are written in the U.S. make them almost useless in places with significant pedestrian activity. New York is a prime example because if people actually followed the laws it would make the sidewalks even more chaotic.