{"id":8889,"date":"2010-01-21T13:00:28","date_gmt":"2010-01-21T18:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingtoronto.ca\/?p=8889"},"modified":"2013-01-21T15:30:21","modified_gmt":"2013-01-21T20:30:21","slug":"a-week-of-pedestrian-death-any-explanation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2010\/01\/21\/a-week-of-pedestrian-death-any-explanation\/","title":{"rendered":"A week of pedestrian death: any explanation?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

As pedestrians deaths have mounted on a daily basis over the past week in the GTA (10 in the past 8 days), I’ve been asked more and more often what is going on, and if there can be some kind of explanation.<\/p>\n

There are lots of explanations<\/a> for why pedestrians get killed by vehicles (I’ve offered up some myself), but most of these explanations are true year-round or at least for the entire winter season. They can’t explain this sudden rash of fatalities in 8 days.<\/p>\n

A minor element might be media focus — the phenomenon where one sees what one is looking for. The unsual and probably random fact that three pedestrians were killed in one day last Tuesday (Jan. 12), including one particularly heart-rending story of a mother killed while pushing her baby in a stroller, focused media attention on the issue, so each new fatality received more attention than the two-sentence paragraph in the Star<\/em> pedestrian fatalities normally receive.<\/p>\n

But the number of deaths in such a short span of time, and their consistency (pretty much one or more a day) is still freakish and extremely unusual. It seems to be worth trying to figure out if there’s anything that could at least partially explain it.<\/p>\n

There can be no definitive explanation, but there is one factor that could conceivably have been a tipping point in some of these deaths — something that might have turned the near-misses and minor injuries that happen to pedestrians every day into a few terrible accidents over the past week.<\/p>\n

A few years ago, the City of Toronto did a study of the statistics on collisions between vehicles and pedestrians<\/a> (PDF). The study found that the peak months for these collisions were October to January (p. 23).<\/p>\n

The study did not, unfortunately, dig deeper, but it did suggest that the cause of this peak may be the increasing darkness during this period. It’s notable that during these months the darkness extends into the commuting hours when pedestrian and vehicle volumes are highest.<\/p>\n

It’s interesting that October to December is also when vehicle collisions with pedestrians become proportionately more common than collisions with other vehicles (in other months they are comparable). While vehicles can still see other vehicles thanks to their lights, they can no longer see pedestrians as effectively during these months.<\/p>\n

(The study found that bad weather, somewhat surprisingly, did not significantly increase the number of collisions — probably because everyone is more careful).<\/p>\n

How does this relate to the recent rash of accidents? Tuesday Jan. 12 was (if I remember correctly) a day when a series of sunny, cold days transformed into mostly overcast, mild weather that lasted until Wed. Jan. 20 — the period in which so many pedestrians were killed. Although dawn is happening a little earlier every day, the overcast skies meant it was actually darker every morning and evening than it had been previously. It’s possible that people have been deceived by the expanding minutes of daytime into thinking that visibility should be improving, but it has actually been worse than they realize for the past week. Conceivably, as a result, both drivers and pedestrians have thought they could see better than they actually could, and have not been as careful in the grey of an overcast dawn as they were when it was obviously dark. It only takes a few seconds of difference to turn a near-miss into a tragic death.<\/p>\n

It’s a tenuous explanation, to be sure, but it’s the only thing I can think of that distinguishes the last week from all the other weeks of the year when pedestrian deaths are more spread out. At least some of the ten accidents in the past week have taken place in the morning hours when this deceptive lack of visibility could have been a factor. Although others were at times when visibility wasn’t a factor, it could have been responsible for\u00a0 just enough additional accidents to tranform what would have been a few random accidents spaced out over a week into a disconcertingly consistent streak that drew media attention.<\/p>\n

For the first few days, I assumed the daily pedestrian deaths were a freakish statistical anomaly, but after more than a week of them, I think it’s reasonable to try to find some kind of explanation. If the deaths stop now that it’s sunnier, that would strengthen this hypothesis.<\/p>\n

Could anything be done about this kind of situation? The answer is yes. I’ve proposed<\/a>, for example, that zebra crossings (heavy white horizontal lines) in intersections would improve the visibility of pedestrian crossings in all light conditions and remind drivers to look for pedestrians at intersections. A City pilot project showed that they do reduce pedestrian-vehicle conflict. The City is installing them slowly as roads are repaved, but that process could be accelerated.<\/p>\n

Another thing the City could do is have a public education program — such as ads on the radio — every October or November to remind both drivers and pedestrians that the increasing darkness makes accidents more likely, and to be more careful when commuting during the dark months.<\/p>\n

In the past, these kinds of pedestrian safety public education campaigns<\/a> haven’t been targeted at particular issues. But public education campaigns are most effective when they target a particular situation that people can relate to.<\/p>\n

There are many other things that can be done to improve the situation for pedestrians in Toronto in general all year round, and many of them can be found in the City’s new Walking Strategy<\/em><\/a>. But these two particularly address the issue of visibility.<\/p>\n

It seems like something should be done to prevent a recurrence of such a tragic week for pedestrians.<\/p>\n

photo by Kevin Steele<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As pedestrians deaths have mounted on a daily basis over the past week in the GTA (10 in the past 8 days), I’ve been asked more and more often what is going on, and if there can be some kind of explanation. There are lots of explanations for why pedestrians get killed by vehicles (I’veContinue reading “A week of pedestrian death: any explanation?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4006,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[13,9,6],"tags":[666,5670,416,405,19,55],"class_list":["post-8889","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-green-space","category-traffic","category-walking","tag-kevin-steele","tag-media-attention","tag-pdf","tag-the-star","tag-toronto","tag-weather"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nA week of pedestrian death: any explanation? - Spacing Toronto<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2010\/01\/21\/a-week-of-pedestrian-death-any-explanation\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A week of pedestrian death: any explanation? - Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"As pedestrians deaths have mounted on a daily basis over the past week in the GTA (10 in the past 8 days), I’ve been asked more and more often what is going on, and if there can be some kind of explanation. There are lots of explanations for why pedestrians get killed by vehicles (I’veContinue reading "A week of pedestrian death: any explanation?"\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2010\/01\/21\/a-week-of-pedestrian-death-any-explanation\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-01-21T18:00:28+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2013-01-21T20:30:21+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/farm1.static.flickr.com\/25\/51371596_2855889ea0.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Dylan Reid\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@Spacing\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@Spacing\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Dylan Reid\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2010\/01\/21\/a-week-of-pedestrian-death-any-explanation\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2010\/01\/21\/a-week-of-pedestrian-death-any-explanation\/\",\"name\":\"A week of pedestrian death: any explanation? - Spacing Toronto\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2010\/01\/21\/a-week-of-pedestrian-death-any-explanation\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2010\/01\/21\/a-week-of-pedestrian-death-any-explanation\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"http:\/\/farm1.static.flickr.com\/25\/51371596_2855889ea0.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2010-01-21T18:00:28+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2013-01-21T20:30:21+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/#\/schema\/person\/5db677dc17e5329d01b88dfb319d259b\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2010\/01\/21\/a-week-of-pedestrian-death-any-explanation\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2010\/01\/21\/a-week-of-pedestrian-death-any-explanation\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2010\/01\/21\/a-week-of-pedestrian-death-any-explanation\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/farm1.static.flickr.com\/25\/51371596_2855889ea0.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"http:\/\/farm1.static.flickr.com\/25\/51371596_2855889ea0.jpg\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2010\/01\/21\/a-week-of-pedestrian-death-any-explanation\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"A week of pedestrian death: any explanation?\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/\",\"name\":\"Spacing Toronto\",\"description\":\"Canadian Urbanism Uncovered | Toronto Architecture, Urban Design, Public Transit, City Hall, Parks, Walking, Bikes, Streetscape, History, Waterfront, Maps, Public Spaces\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/#\/schema\/person\/5db677dc17e5329d01b88dfb319d259b\",\"name\":\"Dylan Reid\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/196165a3da8aa047d1d3816d24de1d3a?s=96&d=blank&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/196165a3da8aa047d1d3816d24de1d3a?s=96&d=blank&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Dylan Reid\"},\"description\":\"Dylan Reid is a senior editor at Spacing Magazine. He has also written articles for NOW magazine and the uTOpia books. He was co-chair of the Toronto Pedestrian Committee 2007-2010, was one of the founders of the Toronto Coalition (now Centre) for Active Transportation, and is a co-founder of Walk Toronto. Dylan is also a Fellow at the Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies at the University of Toronto.\",\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/www.spacing.ca\/\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/author\/dylan\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"A week of pedestrian death: any explanation? - Spacing Toronto","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2010\/01\/21\/a-week-of-pedestrian-death-any-explanation\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"A week of pedestrian death: any explanation? - Spacing Toronto","og_description":"As pedestrians deaths have mounted on a daily basis over the past week in the GTA (10 in the past 8 days), I’ve been asked more and more often what is going on, and if there can be some kind of explanation. There are lots of explanations for why pedestrians get killed by vehicles (I’veContinue reading \"A week of pedestrian death: any explanation?\"","og_url":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2010\/01\/21\/a-week-of-pedestrian-death-any-explanation\/","og_site_name":"Spacing Toronto","article_published_time":"2010-01-21T18:00:28+00:00","article_modified_time":"2013-01-21T20:30:21+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/farm1.static.flickr.com\/25\/51371596_2855889ea0.jpg","type":"","width":"","height":""}],"author":"Dylan Reid","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@Spacing","twitter_site":"@Spacing","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Dylan Reid","Est. reading time":"5 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2010\/01\/21\/a-week-of-pedestrian-death-any-explanation\/","url":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2010\/01\/21\/a-week-of-pedestrian-death-any-explanation\/","name":"A week of pedestrian death: any explanation? - Spacing Toronto","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2010\/01\/21\/a-week-of-pedestrian-death-any-explanation\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2010\/01\/21\/a-week-of-pedestrian-death-any-explanation\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/farm1.static.flickr.com\/25\/51371596_2855889ea0.jpg","datePublished":"2010-01-21T18:00:28+00:00","dateModified":"2013-01-21T20:30:21+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/#\/schema\/person\/5db677dc17e5329d01b88dfb319d259b"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2010\/01\/21\/a-week-of-pedestrian-death-any-explanation\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2010\/01\/21\/a-week-of-pedestrian-death-any-explanation\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2010\/01\/21\/a-week-of-pedestrian-death-any-explanation\/#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/farm1.static.flickr.com\/25\/51371596_2855889ea0.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/farm1.static.flickr.com\/25\/51371596_2855889ea0.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2010\/01\/21\/a-week-of-pedestrian-death-any-explanation\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"A week of pedestrian death: any explanation?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/#website","url":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/","name":"Spacing Toronto","description":"Canadian Urbanism Uncovered | Toronto Architecture, Urban Design, Public Transit, City Hall, Parks, Walking, Bikes, Streetscape, History, Waterfront, Maps, Public Spaces","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/#\/schema\/person\/5db677dc17e5329d01b88dfb319d259b","name":"Dylan Reid","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/196165a3da8aa047d1d3816d24de1d3a?s=96&d=blank&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/196165a3da8aa047d1d3816d24de1d3a?s=96&d=blank&r=g","caption":"Dylan Reid"},"description":"Dylan Reid is a senior editor at Spacing Magazine. He has also written articles for NOW magazine and the uTOpia books. He was co-chair of the Toronto Pedestrian Committee 2007-2010, was one of the founders of the Toronto Coalition (now Centre) for Active Transportation, and is a co-founder of Walk Toronto. Dylan is also a Fellow at the Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies at the University of Toronto.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.spacing.ca\/"],"url":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/author\/dylan\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4006"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8889"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8889\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8898,"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8889\/revisions\/8898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}