Infrastructure Overhaul Should Focus More on Safety Advocates Say pewtrusts.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from pewtrusts.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Subscribe Last year was filled with so much death and loss as COVID swept across the country. As America gets vaccinated and returns to normal, we need to treat pedestrian safety like the public health emergency that it is, Jonathan Adkins, executive director of the Governors Highway Safety Association, said in a news release. We must strengthen our efforts to protect those on foot from traffic violence by implementing equitable and proven countermeasures that protect people walking and address those driving behaviors that pose the greatest risk, Adkins said.
Data for the report was provided by state highway safety offices. Since the data is preliminary, it may also be incomplete, according to the Governors Highway Safety Association. The numbers are meant to provide an early look at 2020 pedestrian deaths, months before the data is available through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration s Fatality Analysis Reporting System.
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One-hundred and fifty-five pedestrians died in Illinois in 2020, down from 171 last year, even as pedestrian deaths spiked nationwide. (Shutterstock)
ILLINOIS Speeding and drunken and distracted driving are the likely culprits behind a spike in pedestrian deaths recorded in several U.S. states last year, according to new data released Thursday.
In fact, bad driver behavior during the coronavirus pandemic likely contributed to the largest-ever nationwide increase in pedestrian deaths recorded in a single year, according to the Governors Highway Safety Association s 2020 report on pedestrian fatalities by state.
Luckily, Illinois seemed to buck the national trend. It was among several states that saw a decrease in pedestrian deaths, or the number of people on foot who were killed by people driving cars, in 2020.
NJ saw an increase in pedestrian deaths during the pandemic
Even with fewer cars on the road due to the COVID-19 pandemic, pedestrian deaths in the country rose, and that trend was true in New Jersey, as well. According to the Governors Highway Safety Association, there was a 9% increase in pedestrian deaths in New Jersey and a 4.8% increase nationally; New Jersey had 191 pedestrian deaths in 2020.
According to Patch.com, the increase in pedestrian deaths came during a year in which average miles driven dropped 13%. The data were compiled from statistics provided by all fifty states as well as the District of Columbia, and if the preliminary numbers hold up, it would be the worst year for pedestrian deaths since 1989. From 2010-2019, pedestrian deaths increased by 46% according to the research.