1A Combating The Rise In Pedestrian Deaths In The US
10 snips
Dec 4, 2025 
Join Ian Duncan, a Washington Post reporter on transportation politics, as he reveals the shocking 80% rise in pedestrian deaths from 2010 to 2022. Gabe Klein, former transportation chief, discusses how vehicle design and speed make streets deadly. Beth Osborne highlights flaws in postwar road layouts affecting pedestrians, while Charles Brown connects historical inequities in urban planning to rising fatalities in marginalized communities. Together, they advocate for safer roads through community-focused designs and policy changes.
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Rising Pedestrian Fatalities Are A Crisis
- Pedestrian deaths in the U.S. surged nearly 70–80% between 2010 and 2023, creating a persistent public-health crisis.
- Thousands still die or are seriously injured each year despite some local safety efforts.
Speed, Weight, And A Moral Crisis
- Gabe Klein frames the problem as speed, vehicle weight, distraction, and a cultural moral failure tolerating road deaths.
- He argues change requires public demand and cultural acceptance that road deaths are unacceptable.
Design Speed Drives Dangerous Behavior
- Roads in postwar sunbelt cities were built for high design speeds, not local safety, causing drivers to follow the design rather than posted limits.
- That design-speed mismatch increases speeding and lethal conflicts with pedestrians.
