WaPo: Pedestrians Deaths Have Doubled in Past 10 Years

[Anonymous]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2025/02/23/pedestrian-deaths-dc-region/

Disgusting. Equally disgusting that our elected officials refuse to muster the energy to do anything beyond the most marginal, performative measures that are necessary to get drivers to obey road rules and stop maiming and killing people.

The nosedive in manual enforcement by the local police agencies is inexcusable. As is the various decisions to not assign any meaningful consequences to refusing to pay automated fines. As is the unwillingness to expand the scope of camera enforcement.

The political imperative that drivers must face absolutely no consequences for their behavior - no matter how illegal, antisocial, or destructive - is literally killing us.

(There will soon be a post on this thread by the resident liar / idiot / apologist for vehicular manslaughter asserting that the lives of those killed on our local streets do not matter and/or speeding is not a common factor in these deaths and/or that these pedestrians are responsible for their own deaths. This person is a known purveyor of misinformation and, quite frankly, is a menace to public safety.)

[Anonymous]

I entirely agree with you, OP.

My own spouse is a dangerous driver. I keep telling him that one day he will cause an accident. It's unbelievable how reckless drivers can be - I see it every day when I commute. I live in downtown Bethesda, with lots of pedestrians crossing every which way, and some drivers just don't stop for people who cross legally at crosswalks, even though it's the law.

[Anonymous]

Charles Allen’s policies continue to cause deaths in DC. Not a surprise.

[Anonymous]

The chutzpah of Charles Allen in that article to say "it's personal to me" when he literally wrote laws that kept dangerous drivers on the road, and literally has called for MPD to stop all in-person traffic enforcement. He's a ghoul.

[Anonymous]

Vision Zero has ironically killed at least one pedestrian this year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Vision Zero has ironically killed at least one pedestrian this year.

Yeah, they lowered speed limits to save pedestrian lives; they added No Turn on Red at many more intersections to save lives; they took away travel lanes and converted to bike lanes..

and the result is.. deaths go up?

[Anonymous]

The article suggests that the increase is due to poorly lit roads and drunk drivers. Those feel like solvable issues to me.

[Anonymous]

So the traffic cameras are actually causing more pedestrian deaths? Maybe we should get rid of them and see what happens.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The article suggests that the increase is due to poorly lit roads and drunk drivers. Those feel like solvable issues to me.

No amount of road dieting will stop someone from driving drunk. We need human enforcement. Unfortunately, the Council says human enforcement is racist so that doesn't happen anymore. And with the no-chase policy, all anyone has to do is drive away from the police. There literally is nothing they can do about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The article suggests that the increase is due to poorly lit roads and drunk drivers. Those feel like solvable issues to me.

Light is just an excuse. Roads have never been brighter than they are now. If anything lights are so bright they are blinding.

[Anonymous]

I thought DC was supposed to drop Right Turn on Red?

As a pedestrian, I definitely see a sharp turn for the worse in aggressive driving, but even more in thoughtless selfish driving. I live near a small neighborhood street that runs between two major streets often used by commuters. When I first moved here, I had no problems crossing the street. I’d pick my moment, begin to cross, and cars would wait. Traffic lights were installed, changed, and now will apparently be changed again — in ways that I hope will make the crossing less dangerous for pedestrians — who often end up stranded on the narrow median between the lanes while turning cars from both sides of the cross street fight to squeeze there way in before the light changes, cutting off their turns. It can be terrifying, to the point where I actually miss the denser but far more predictable behavior of the traffic in Manhattan.

I think it’s thoughtlessness and over-focus. Giving pedestrians the right-of-way just isn’t really there in the same way that it was even a few years ago.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The chutzpah of Charles Allen in that article to say "it's personal to me" when he literally wrote laws that kept dangerous drivers on the road, and literally has called for MPD to stop all in-person traffic enforcement. He's a ghoul.

He has enabled the maniacs causing these deaths to stay on the road. Could be due to his own personal history of drunk driving.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Vision Zero has ironically killed at least one pedestrian this year.

Yeah, they lowered speed limits to save pedestrian lives; they added No Turn on Red at many more intersections to save lives; they took away travel lanes and converted to bike lanes..

and the result is.. deaths go up?

Did you really never learn that correlation does not imply causation? Or do you just make arguments that you know are stupid when they serve your interests.

No reasonable person can argue in good faith that any of the innovations you list could possibly contribute to increased pedestrian fatalities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So the traffic cameras are actually causing more pedestrian deaths? Maybe we should get rid of them and see what happens.

Traffic cameras are all about money and no pedestrian security. Speed bumps are safer, but Bowser and the council will refuse to replace speed cameras for speed bumps because of the money speed cameras generate, even though speed bumps are safer for pedestrians.

"In terms of the percentage accident reduction, however, engineering schemes incorporating vertical deflections (such as speed humps or cushions) offer the largest benefits: at 44%, the average reduction in personal injury accidents attributable to such schemes, is twice that at sites where safety cameras were used to control speeds (22%) and they were the only type of scheme to have a significant impact on fatal and serious accidents."

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/7854768_Are_speed_enforcement_cameras_more_effective_than_other_speed_management_measures_The_impact_of_speed_management_schemes_on_30_mph_roads

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The article suggests that the increase is due to poorly lit roads and drunk drivers. Those feel like solvable issues to me.

No amount of road dieting will stop someone from driving drunk. We need human enforcement. Unfortunately, the Council says human enforcement is racist so that doesn't happen anymore. And with the no-chase policy, all anyone has to do is drive away from the police. There literally is nothing they can do about it.

It’s not just drunk driving. Very few people drive drunk during the day and yet every pedestrian in DC has experienced plenty of homicidal driving during the day. The problem is, as you correctly deduce, that most drivers in DC know that there are zero consequences for doing almost anything on the streets of DC and most surrounding counties and so are doing whatever they want. I consider myself a cautious driver but have now go through yellow lights that I previously would have stopped for because, well, everyone is doing it (a practice I have to consciously change when outside of the DMV lest I get ticketed). We are living with the results of enforcement being almost entirely outsourced to cameras and those consequences are the increase in fatalities.