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• Honolulu traffic fatality drivers#

Honolulu traffic fatality drivers#

Around the world, almost 1.35 million people die each year in traffic accidents, but 93 percent of those fatalities occur in low- and middle- income countries where mass vehicle usage is a recent phenomenon.Īs manufacturers produce safer vehicles, cities improve roads and drivers become more adept, fatalities tend to decline. Smeed found that initially, with the early introduction of motor vehicles, traffic deaths tend to rise. Smeed, a scholar at the United Kingdom’s Road Research Laboratory. The overall decline is a confirmation of Smeed’s Law, named after R.J. By 2017 that figure had fallen to around 40,000, even with an increase in the number of vehicle miles driven. In the early 1970s, almost 55,000 Americans were killed in traffic accidents yearly, including people in vehicles, pedestrians and cyclists. Nick Gray/Creative Commons The Long Decline In Traffic Fatalitiesįrom a long-term perspective, traffic fatalities in the United States are declining. Cycling advocates set up ‘ghost bikes,’ like this one in Brooklyn, in memory of bikers killed in traffic. As my research has shown, this shifting mix can be deadly. More people are being killed because cities are encouraging residents to walk and bike, but their roads are still dominated by fast-moving vehicular traffic. Pedestrian deaths also have risen in New York, and pedestrian and cycling fatalities have increased in Los Angeles in the past several years.Īcross the nation, cyclist fatalities have increased by 25 percent since 2010 and pedestrian deaths have risen by a staggering 45 percent. In Washington D.C., for example, traffic fatalities as a whole declined in 2018 compared to the year before, but the number of pedestrian and bicyclist deaths increased by 20 percent.

But the results aren’t all positive, especially in the short to medium term. Such policies make sense, since they can, in the long run, lead to less traffic, cleaner air and healthier people.

As cities strive to improve the quality of life for their residents, many are working to promote walking and biking.