Pedestrian Safety

Approximately 5,900 pedestrians are killed by automobiles every year... 84,000 suffer nonfatal injuries. Almost one-third of these victims are children under the age of 15 yet they represent only about 15% of the U.S. population.

By following the few safety tips listed below, you can protect yourself and your children.

• It is critical to teach children to look left-right-left before crossing streets.
• Cross only at designated crossings. Entering traffic mid-block or from between parked cars is dangerous.
• Teach children to never dart out into traffic.

For your information.

• A growing number of communities are implementing measures to make their environments more walkable, ranging from including sidewalks on all newly constructed streets, to implementing widespread traffic-calming measures.
• The physical environment does impact how much and how safely residents can and will walk. In research comparing communities with suburban sprawl (few sidewalks and inaccessible pedestrian destinations like large malls surrounded by parking lots) to traditional communities (with plentiful sidewalks and inviting downtown commercial areas), it was found there were three times as many pedestrian trips in the communities designed with pedestrians in mind.