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The assertion made in this GGW article is this: "It's long past time to install more traffic cameras and make our streets safer." This has devolved in this discussion to, essentially, stricter enforcement of speed limits will save pedestrian lives.

The "higher speed = higher mortality" argument assumes that pedestrians will be hit, therefore having the cars go slower will reduce the number of victims who die. I suppose, but I think the problem is much more complex than that.

Re the decline in pedestrian fatalities over the years -- actually the pedestrian decline exceeds the car-occupant decline, pedestrian deaths now accounting for 13% of all highway deaths, vs. 17% in 1975. That's a pretty surprising statistic, given that occupant deaths have been substantially reduced by air bags and anti-lock brakes, factors which do little for pedestrians. Given further that (1) automobile speeds have not decreased, and (2) SUVs are more lethal to pedestrians than sedans -- well, there's much more going on here than just a decline in all highway deaths.

Also more to the point, the subject here is speed cameras in DC, where congestion tends to keep traffic speeds low. To cite examples near me, a speed camera on Porter Street has resulted in a lot of speeding tickets, and evidently has caused traffic to slow, but it's in a location where there is very little pedestrian traffic, so its life-saving benefits are negligible. On the other hand, the intersections considered most dangerous to pedestrians are the Irving Street and Kenyon/Park Road crossings of 14th Street. Speed cameras won't do any good there, yet that's where the pedestrian collisions happen, that's where the risk is.

As for red light cameras, absolutely! Red-light running in DC is, IMHO, far more hazardous to pedestrians than whether a car is moving at 35 mph, vs 25 mph.

by Jack on Mar 29, 2012 3:30 pm • link • report