Better Burque knows some readers have grown a bit tired of our monthly looks at pedestrian fatalities statistics via UNM Traffic Research Unit. Well, if you’re tired of looking at them, how about we work together to truly do something about it other than simply blaming those killed?
How about we actually address acknowledged, yet unresolved problems such as non-ADA compliant sidewalks, right turns on red, too widely spaced crosswalks, and lingering lack of understanding, police included, on what drivers must do when someone enters a crosswalk, flashing/red HAWK lights or not.
For starters.
It might “jazz things up” this month to also point out that nine cyclists have died in New Mexico this year. Overall, almost a quarter (24.0%) of roadways deaths this year have been walking or cycling our roadways. Studies differ slightly on how many walkers and cyclists are on our roads, but these roadway users (humans, I might add, not sub-humans. Well, not officially.) are dying at something like five to six times the rate expected if all user types were equal.
They’re not equal. And I’m sorry that might have become a boring fact for some, but until we:
- Spend the necessary money
- Sufficiently improve roadway engineering
- Stop with the car-centric caste system (drivers human, others sub-human) bullshit
Insanely high rates of non-motorized roadway users are going to die. And Better Burque will keep telling you about it.
Promise.
Better Burque 
Three+ years of living and participating as a pedestrian in New Zealand informed me about two common sense road crossing designs we don’t have here:
1. Intersections with lights: No left (our right) turn on red AND the line where cars stop for a red is set back further. This makes it almost impossible for a driver to break the no “right” turn on red rule because cross traffic cannot be seen Crosswalks also have more buffer from the activity in the middle of an intersection.
2. Pedestrians get periodic crossing areas that have a safe median between lanes. Cars are not required to stop for pedestrians at these crossings. Physical barriers direct traffic around the narrow median. I preferred these because I was in control of when it was safe to cross one lane and then the other.
LikeLike