Do you really think that road design doesn’t matter at all, and all designs are equally (un)safe?
Consider a library with a parking lot across the street.
In one design, the street is four lanes, 45 mph, and there’s no crosswalk. The expectation is for people to walk a quarter mile out of the way to the nearby intersection.
In the other design: the road is 25 mph, with only two narrow lanes. There’s a crosswalk that’s over a speed table, with chicanes before and after.
Do you really expect both designs to have equal numbers of deaths?
Road design DOES matter and there’s no question that bad roads where I live (in Utah where they cheaped out and bought pavement that ended up cracking all over the roadways) do damage cars and make driving a lot more unsafe. I’m not saying that road design simply doesn’t matter, that would be absurd.
But in Utah, it doesn’t matter how well designed the roads are. Even with clearly marked pedestrian crossings and lights, cars run the lights and kill people all the time here because, utahns believe they won’t be charged if they kill someone with their car.
I know it’s hard to believe, but it’s absolutely true - they really believe it’s OK to kill people on the sidewalks, streets, or in crosswalks.
Do you really think that road design doesn’t matter at all, and all designs are equally (un)safe?
Consider a library with a parking lot across the street.
In one design, the street is four lanes, 45 mph, and there’s no crosswalk. The expectation is for people to walk a quarter mile out of the way to the nearby intersection.
In the other design: the road is 25 mph, with only two narrow lanes. There’s a crosswalk that’s over a speed table, with chicanes before and after.
Do you really expect both designs to have equal numbers of deaths?
Road design DOES matter and there’s no question that bad roads where I live (in Utah where they cheaped out and bought pavement that ended up cracking all over the roadways) do damage cars and make driving a lot more unsafe. I’m not saying that road design simply doesn’t matter, that would be absurd.
But in Utah, it doesn’t matter how well designed the roads are. Even with clearly marked pedestrian crossings and lights, cars run the lights and kill people all the time here because, utahns believe they won’t be charged if they kill someone with their car.
I know it’s hard to believe, but it’s absolutely true - they really believe it’s OK to kill people on the sidewalks, streets, or in crosswalks.