Being as you’re in this obscure neck of the Internet woods, you’ve probably heard/read findings of the preliminary 2022 report on pedestrian fatalities by the Governors’ Highway Safety Association. You also probably saw an accompanying graph that looked something like this from CNN:

And maybe, you’re like me and you’ve been thinking quite a bit since about this information overall and similar graphs, in particular. It’s a good graph telling a bad story.

As for me, it took a bit of time staring at it to come to a realization: It’s not about the infrastructure. Roadway infrastructure for pedestrians was just as awful, heck even slightly more awful, back in 2010. And it was plenty awful in all those years of declining fatality rates from 1980 to 2010. Yeah, United States roadways have been and continue to be overwhelmingly built for drivers and against pedestrians.

That being a constant…what’s up with the fatality numbers?

Why has the rate reverted to that of 40 some years ago, nearly doubling since the Great Recession? Are drivers just more sociopathically kill-happy these days? Is it because of opioids? Increased homelessness? Is it because vehicles have gotten so big and tall drivers can’t stay in the lane and can’t see shit standing less than seven feet high? Is it cell phone distraction? And what about those kill-happy drivers?

As with most everything, it’s a combination of things, but it’s not the infrastructure. That realization has me thinking twice and again when I come across any “urbanist” news, views, literature. I’m not saying there aren’t positives, huge multi-modal positives, to “complete streets” and such. I’m just saying we must address non-infrastructure issues. We must also start doing a better job in studying reasons for this appalling trend and prioritize efforts in response to findings from those studies.

Immediately.