Pedestrian Safety Report Is Out--You Can Make A Difference

The past two days, Jews around the world marked the start of the Jewish New Year, or Rosh Hashanah. In case you're wondering what that has to do with schools, or pedestrian safety, let me tell you.

A year ago last night (counting by the Jewish calendar*), on the second night of Rosh Hashanah, a little girl named Anna Hendren Schwalb was hit by a car in Ann Arbor, and she unfortunately did not survive. In Anna's memory, last year I wrote about how pedestrian deaths--of children--are more common than you would think.

Ann Arbor averaged 55 pedestrian crashes per year for the five-year period 2010-2014; this was a 22% increase over the average of 45 pedestrian crashes for the previous five-year period 2005-2009. In addition, using those same two periods, the total number of incapacitating injuries resulting from pedestrian crashes increased 100% (22 to 44), and the total number of fatalities increased from 2 to 6. . . And while Ann Arbor crashes involving pedestrians represent only 16% of all crashes in the City of Ann Arbor, pedestrians account for one-third (1/3) of the fatalities and almost one-quarter (1/4) of all serious injuries. --From the City of Ann Arbor Pedestrian Safety & Access Task Force Report, p. 3

The fact is, when it comes to car-pedestrian, or car-bike accidents, it's not exactly a fair match-up.**

Anyway--I was already interested in pedestrian safety, but Anna's death made me pay attention to the city's Pedestrian Safety and Access Task Force. And last night, exactly a year after Anna was hit by the car, the task force presented their findings to city council at a working session.

And yes, I think that this is definitely a school issue. Many kids do walk or bike to school; and many don't, because their parents don't feel that where they would need to walk would be safe. Many kids walk to school on roads without sidewalks; cross roads without crosswalks; leave their houses before it is light, or return home when it's already dark.

Cover page of the Pedestrian Safety & Access Task Force.
You can find the report online here.

The Task Force identifies "Seven Symptoms" in their report--one specifically calls out children walking or biking to school, but I think the others all relate to schools as well:

1. Motorists passing other Vehicles that are stopped for Pedestrians in a Crosswalk. 
2. Motorists failing to stop for Pedestrians at Midblock Crosswalks. 
3. Motorists failing to stop for Pedestrians at School Crosswalks. Marked school crosswalks are not immune to symptoms 1 and 2. 
4. Motorists failing to yield to Pedestrians when Turning at Intersections. 
5. Inconsistent Signing, Marking and Signaling of Crosswalks. 
6. Snow and Ice Accumulation on Sidewalks and Crosswalks Inhibiting Pedestrian Travel. 
7. Motorists Speeding in Residential Neighborhoods.

There are a lot of recommendations. I am not going to summarize them here. I'm just going to say--you should read the report.

Beyond reading, though, what can you do?

1. Support the proposals in the task force report--some of them take money, some of them take time, some of them take awareness. Remember, support can be beautiful.

2. "If you see something, say something." If you see something that seems unsafe for pedestrians or bicyclists, speak up! The right "authority" to notify might be the schools, or city council, or township government, or the county road commission. Recently, I put in a request through my city council representative to have the Newport/Red Oak flashing yellow light become flashing red around the times that school starts and school ends. I don't know whether that will happen, but I realized--it doesn't hurt to ask.

3. Slow down. Yes, I'm talking to myself here, too. In fact, one of the recommendations is to work toward speed limits of 25 miles per hour or less city wide. As the report notes, "any residential street where the 85 percentile speed is greater than 25 mph or a school zone where the 85 percentile speed is greater than 25 mph during school hours should be evaluated for geometric, signal timing and roadside improvements that have been shown to reduce the speed of motor vehicles."

And why are we doing this? To make this place safer--for kids, and for adults, for pedestrians, for bicyclists, and for drivers.


*The Jewish calendar is lunar-solar, so it doesn't match up exactly with the secular calendar. The events I'm talking about took place a few weeks later in 2014.

**And I was reminded of this last month, when my husband was in a car-bike accident. He was the one on the bike. Luckily, he's fine (just a few scratches), thank you for asking. The bike was quite damaged. The car? unscathed. Whatever numbers of accidents they have compiled, I'm pretty sure that it's an undercount. For example, my husband and the car driver did not immediately file a police report (or exchange numbers! that was a mistake!)--my husband filed it several days later. How many accidents never get reported, or counted?

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Step by Step: Moving Forward After the Death of Anna Hendren Schwalb

In the last two weeks, we lost two children. Today's post is dedicated to the memory of Anna Hendren Schwalb, and the next post is dedicated to the memory of Christian Lorinczy.

Anna was a kindergarten student at the Hebrew Day School, and a member of my synagogue, and a friend of many of my friends. She was killed tragically while crossing Geddes at dusk, and at first I thought of it as a very rare occurrence.

And pedestrian deaths are rare--but not that rare, I realized as my friend Danny said to me,
"That's just like what happened to Lauren's niece." And then I remembered. He was referring to the niece of my sister's friend Lauren. Maya Hirsch was four years old when she was killed while crossing a street in Chicago in 2006.

It is rare--but not that rare, I realized when my husband said to me,
"That's just like what happened to David and Sally's neighbors." He was referring to our college friend David, whose neighbor Samuel Cohen-Eckstein was killed on a road in Prospect Park in Brooklyn, shortly before his bar mitzvah last year, in the fall of 2013.

It is rare--but not that rare, I realized as I thought about Jimmy Amico's son Jarrid. Jimmy was a high school classmate of mine, and his ten-year old son Jarrid was killed by a van while he was riding a bicycle in my hometown of Rye, NY in 2006.

That's just the kids, and that's just the deaths. That doesn't count my friend Cara's close encounter with a car while she walked through a crosswalk (broken leg, but her daughter in the stroller was fine); or my friend Wendy's colleague, who was hit--and killed--by a bus. Or the Ann Arbor child who was recently hit by a car on the way to school--and luckily, escaped with scrapes.

When you start to think about it, you too may remember a friend, or a friend of a friend, whose child was killed by a car.

The obituaries called each of these "tragic accidents," and they are. As a person who spends my days thinking about public health, though, I know that these deaths are preventable. Preventable.

And I know I am not the only person who occasionally drives above the speed limit. Who has gotten aggravated by traffic. Who occasionally is distracted by my thoughts, by a story on the radio, by a phone call. Just the other day--while thinking about what I would write for this blog post (ironic, but not in a good way)--I had to brake really hard to stop for a crosswalk, where a pedestrian was waiting on the side.

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One Passover, for the Seder (the dinner event where Jews tell the story of the Israelite's Exodus from Egypt and from slavery), we asked our guests to bring symbols of liberation and symbols of slavery. One guest brought car keys as a symbol of liberation. Another brought car keys as a symbol of slavery.

Yes, cars can free us, and cars can enslave us.  But we also need to remember--cars can be weapons, too.

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The death of Maya Hirsch triggered a lot of activity. 

A new law, dubbed "Maya's Law," increased the penalties for people who drive through stop signs. At least one police officer started handing out stickers with tickets--stickers that read:

REMEMBER MAYA! Maya was killed by a driver who failed to stop at a stop sign & yield to pedestrians in a crosswalk. STOP AT STOP SIGNS! YIELD TO PEOPLE IN CROSSWALKS!

After being sued by the Hirsch family, the City of Chicago paid a $3.25 million lawsuit settlement, and as Grid Chicago writer John Greenfield wrote in 2012, The Maya Hirsch Settlement Will Help Save the Lives of Other Chicago Children.

Maya’s family eventually sued the city after it was discovered that, at the time of the crash, the signs and markings at the intersection weren’t up to the city’s official standards...Under Mayor Emanuel and Chicago Department of Transportation commissioner Gabe Klein, the city has taken many steps to improve pedestrian safety, demonstrating the city’s changing transportation priorities. The transportation department has repainted hundreds of crosswalks with high-visibility zebra-stripe markings. New leading pedestrian interval traffic signals give walkers a head start over turning vehicles. Existing red light cameras and incoming speed cameras will discourage dangerous driving. Recently the city began installing hundreds of “Stop for pedestrians within crosswalk” signs to remind drivers of the new state law. And the city’s Chicago Forward action agenda states the goal of reducing traffic fatalities to zero.The $3.25 million settlement underscores the importance of continuing these improvements. It’s unfortunate that taxpayer money has to be spent this way when the same amount could have paid for 8,125 “Stop for pedestrians” signs, which are purchased, sited and installed for $400 each.

After the death of Samuel Cohen-Eckstein, the speed limit was dropped on the street where he was killed, and the timing of traffic lights was altered to slow drivers down.

It took Jarrid Amico's parents several years--and in the meantime, another child was hit by a car in the same spot--but eventually, they got a stop sign placed on the street near the site of the accident.

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After Anna's death, my son and I were discussing street crossings.
He described a scene from a couple of years ago, when he was in eighth grade.
He and his friend were leaving the County Rec Center, and rushing to catch the bus on the other side of the street. So they ran across Washtenaw. (Now, there is a traffic light there--but at the time there was none.) "Standing in the middle of the road," he told me--"That was scary."
Why, I asked him, didn't he walk to the crosswalk?
"Because it was two blocks away."

Moral: distances that are short by car, seem much longer by foot. We need to think about scale, not just from the point of view of cars, but also from the point of view of pedestrians and bicyclists.

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As a community, we have a chance--and a responsibility--to improve pedestrian safety.

As walkers, we have a chance--and a responsibility--to improve pedestrian safety.

As drivers, we have a chance--and a responsibility--to improve pedestrian safety.

May the memories of Anna Hendren Schwalb, and Jarrid Amico, and Maya Hirsch, and Samuel Cohen-Eckstein, be blessings. In their memories, let's advocate for safer streets, and work to make our own driving more careful.

Taken from the World Health Organization's
First Global Pedestrian Safety Campaign

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