As roads become safer for drivers and passengers, pedestrian deaths still rise

Safer cars and safer roads have resulted in an overall decline in driver and passenger fatalities in recent years, but pedestrians are as vulnerable as ever and the number killed by vehicles continues to increase, according to a new study.

The Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA) estimates that the number of pedestrian fatalities jumped by 10 percent last year, a year-to-year increase that comes after a 19 percent increase from 2009-14, the association said in a report scheduled to be released Tuesday.

During that same period — as air bags, lane warning devices and traction control made vehicles ever more protective — overall traffic deaths declined by about 4 percent.

For the first time in 25 years, the association said, pedestrian deaths in 2015 are projected to account for 15 percent of all traffic fatalities.

“We are projecting the largest year-to-year increase in pedestrian fatalities since national records have been kept, and therefore we are quite alarmed,” said Richard Retting, who co-authored the GHSA report with Heather Rothenberg. The federal accident reporting system was established in 1975.

There were two pedestrians killed in separate hit-and-run collisions on Kennewick streets in 2015. Both cases remain unsolved.

Michael P. Robinson, 58, was hit in February 2015 while crossing Columbia Center Boulevard. He was walking to church to get exercise after a recent heart attack.

Mark Brown Sr., 49, died when he was run over after apparently falling out of his motorized chair last August at the intersection of Washington Street and Eighth Avenue.

Both crashes were at night and the victims were not in crosswalks.

Also, in recent years, two women died crossing streets in Kennewick and Pasco.

Nina Howard, 52, was hit by a speeding car on West 27th Street in April 2014. A red SUV struck Juana Figueroa Figueroa, 65, as she crossed at the intersection of 20th Avenue and Lewis Street in November 2013.

Kennewick police Sgt. Ken Lattin, who oversees the traffic unit, told the Herald that pedestrians and drivers need to take steps — like crossing in crosswalks and not driving while distracted — to curb the number of fatalities.

“Driving a car is not the place to multi-task,” Lattin said. “Pedestrians need to obey crossing signals and be on the lookout. Sometimes it’s easier to see those headlights than for the driver to see you.”

Final figures for 2015 traffic deaths are still being compiled, but the projected 10 percent increase would bring pedestrian deaths to the highest total since 1996, when 5,449 pedestrians were killed by cars.

The primary reasons more people on foot are dying track closely with trends in three areas: economic, social and electronic.

Cheaper gas in a stable economy means more people are driving. The notion of "walkable communities" has been reborn, and the Government Accountability Office says nearly a million more people are walking or biking to work. And distracted driving puts pedestrians particularly at risk. A study completed by Public Health Reports in 2010 said that pedestrian fatalities caused by distracted drivers had increased by 50 percent over five years.

In addition to drivers distracted by their cellphones, pedestrians put themselves at risk by staring at their phones or using them with earbuds that drown out the approach of vehicles.

The other elements that put pedestrians particularly at risk draw heavily on the obvious. People on streets after dark are more likely to get hit, with 72 percent of fatalities in 2014 happening between 6 p.m. and midnight. More than three-quarters of deaths happened somewhere other than an intersection.

Alcohol, which is a factor in almost one-third of all traffic deaths, also figures heavily in pedestrian fatalities. In those cases, it was the pedestrian who was more likely to have been legally drunk (34 percent of all pedestrian fatalities) than the driver (15 percent).

The GHSA report and projections draw on data compiled by the state highway safety offices that make up the GHSA membership. Those statistics are given to the federal National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which will stitch them into national numbers for 2015 that will be released later this year.

Although the bottom line will show a nationwide increase in pedestrian deaths, there was not uniformity among individual states. Twenty states — including Virginia — and the District of Columbia reported higher numbers in 2015. Three states — Maine, Utah and Wyoming - had the same number as in 2014. And the remainder, Maryland among them, had fewer pedestrian deaths.

The four largest states — California, Florida, Texas and New York — accounted for 42 percent of the overall pedestrian deaths. California led the way, with 347 people killed.

The GHSA also used the data to calculate in which state pedestrians were most at risk. Based on the number killed per 100,000 residents, Florida ranked first with a fatality rate of 1.35. The District and seven states — Arizona, Delaware, Florida, Mississippi, New Mexico, Oregon and South Carolina — had more than 1 death per 100,000 people.

This story was originally published March 8, 2016 at 9:20 PM with the headline "As roads become safer for drivers and passengers, pedestrian deaths still rise."