Another dead child, another dead pedestrian

(The same thing happened in DC a couple years ago in Greater Brookland.)

Flowers left at the crosswalk on Monday afternoon, Princeton Elementary School, Lithonia, Georgia. Photo: Vino Wong, Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

A child, walking in the crosswalk to school, was killed yesterday in DeKalb County, Georgia. While cars were stopped at the crosswalk, one driver didn't see the stopped vehicles as a cue to stop and continued onward, striking and killing Cameron Dunmore, age 7. See "Child fatally struck at crosswalk" from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

In 1992, Graz, Austria changed the speed limits city-wide to 30 kph and 50 kph, which are about 20 and 30 mph respectively, in order to better balance speeds and mobility for all users of the streets and sidewalks, rather than have speed limits set to favor automobile traffic.

As long as cars are engineered to go very fast and roads are engineered to accommodate cars, we will have these conflicts. So let's change the speed limits and change the road materials--at least in urban neighborhoods, where people walk and bicycle (and use transit)--to better balance the competing needs of pedestrians, bicyclists, transit users, with those of the automobile.

Pedestrian crosswalk in the Shadyside commercial district, Pittsburgh.

According to the article in the AJC, there had been a stoplight at the crosswalk, but it was removed. I never really thought of stoplights as absolutely necessary to protect pedestrians. But it is the only traffic device that mostly has 100% compliance...

Relatedly, this article from the Arizona Republic, "Speed cameras reveal driving habits," sheds some light on drivers who speed.