Wisconsin is facing a “pedestrian fatality epidemic,” said Jessica Wineberg, program director of Share and Be Aware. So far in 2017, there have been 43 pedestrian deaths in Wisconsin, significantly higher than the 27 that died by this point in 2016. And immigrants are at a higher risk of becoming crash victims in pedestrian and bike crashes, according to a 2012 study looking at New York neighborhoods, Wineberg said.
August 31, 2017
"When I first came to this country, people never said, ‘Hey, this is how you need to cross the street.'"
Said De Anda Santana, who is "an ambassador for Share and Be Aware program from the Wisconsin Bike Federation. Share and Be Award... a statewide campaign that offers presentations and classes in English and Spanish about biking, driving and walking safely."
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So immigrants seem to value life less and take safety less seriously than people in America. This is only a shocker to people who haven't been outside the country.
Next we will be asking people from Asia for pedestrian safety tips.
I don't think 16 extra deaths in 8 months is a "crisis". Could be just a statistical anomaly. Besides why would a NYC study be applicable to Wisconsin?
He also points out the merits of biking as an alternative for those without documentation.
“If for some reason you do not have a driver’s license, do not put yourself at risk...
Well now that we know where to look...
Statistical morons. Rcocean is correct- this isn't a sudden crisis.
If you don't have a license, don't put yourself at risk? How about not endangering other people?
I lived in Italy for 2 years. One of the hardest things for me to learn was how to cross the street. Italians simply step out into traffic and walk at a steady pace to the other side. Generally, they cross wherever is the most convenient for them; which is hardly ever at a corner. Why don't they get hit? Because Italian drivers expect pedestrians to step into traffic and are prepared to miss them.
Americans have a great difficulty adopting this approach. If we start across the street without seeing an approaching car, we don't maintain a steady pace once we see the car. We stop or hurry. Meanwhile, the Italian driver assumed that we'll maintain our pace and is swerving to pass to our front or rear. Obviously, this can lead to accidents as we run into or stop in the middle of the car's altered path.
My point is how we cross streets is cultural. It's not a matter of one culture caring more or less about life. The Italian system works. The American system works. It's combining the two systems that's dangerous.
"Do what everyone around you does" is not hard, and immigrants as a group aren't stupid, I assume.
(As DKW said, it's all cultural ... but adaptation should not be remotely impossible.)
How many of the Wisconsin victims are immigrants? Any data? Any proof?
Next theme: The immigrant deaths are not accidents. Because racism.
"And immigrants are at a higher risk of becoming crash victims in pedestrian and bike crashes"
Plenty more where they came from.
Lisa: [reading from the pamphlet] The Duff Beer-amid contains so much aluminum it would take five men to lift it. 22 immigrant laborers died during its construction.
Selma: Eh, there's plenty more where that came from.
I don't know how far you have to go to ensure people will use common sense. The entire transportation system of this country is auto-centric, its more a part of being American then speaking English.
What they're trying to avoid saying is: immigrants are more likely to run over pedestrians and bicyclists.
expired driver’s license
DUI.
from Mexico, he doesn’t see many people who look like him on Madison's famous system of bike trails,
So the bicyclists getting run over are white people.
in Mexico, “pedestrians are not very well respected.”
So Mexican drivers here are more likely to disrespect pedestrians.
Their study: "We find that neighborhoods with a higher concentration of immigrants, especially those from Latin America, Eastern Europe, and Asia, have more crashes."
So immigrants are more likely to cause accidents.
I posit that the problem has it's roots in the willingness to follow the rules when it is a minor inconvenience versus the attitude of fuck'em, everyman for themselves.
Look. Go to a crosswalk. Punch the doohickey at the crosswalk, if there is one. Wait until the light changes. Walk. If no doohickey, walk when there aren't any cars coming.
I admit that in Salem, there are a couple kinds of doohickeys, some pointing across the street one way and others pointing across the street the other way, and that took a bit of getting used to. But, really, this is infant-level simple.
As for not putting others at risk, bingo. Except that I'm not sure that getting them on bikes is all that much safer. Salem has few Hispanics (legal or otherwise), but back in Novato they were nuts on bikes -- riding on the sidewalk next to the bike lane (so forcing me to step off the sidewalk into the bike lane), and in the wrong direction as often as not. Other infant-level instructions: Bike where you're supposed to be, and in the same direction as the traffic on your side of the street. Yeesh.
And immigrants are at a higher risk of becoming crash victims in pedestrian and bike crashes, according to a 2012 study looking at New York neighborhoods, Wineberg said.
Sometimes that’s because they may not know the local traffic rules, she said.
Sounds like someone doesn't know the difference between victim and perpetrator.
Go home.
The rest of you, put your phone away and slow down.
Fify
U don't know what bad driving is until u go to the thurd world.
What, is it "acting Anglo" to renew your driver's license before it expires?
And having driven through the Latino neighborhood in town, I know that it can be dangerous because there are a lot of Latino guys darting across the street on foot or on their bicycles. I'm guessing there weren't many traffic lights or pedestrian crosswalks in their home towns.
Cultural issues in driving and pedestrian safety can be a real issue.
When you go to places where they drive on the opposite side of the road from the United States. England in particular....you'd BETTER learn to look right instead of left when crossing the street.
Look both ways of course but because we are used to traffic coming from the left....if you don't pay attention you can easily and blindly step in front of the oncoming traffic that is coming from the right.
I miss Madison's superb bicycling infrastructure. The more people using and enjoying it the better.
No explanation of what the pedestrians are doing that's getting them killed by cars.
In the Bay Area, where "they" are pushing and promoting bike riding with epic zeal, it has made driving much more dangerous. Adding to the mix, are clueless pedestrians either turned out to their iphones or texting while walking.
Anecdotes:
1. Saw a bicyclist race thru an intersection at dusk get creamed by a car (got out and helped, of course).
2. Saw a co-worker in SF, cross busy street too eagerly, got hit by bicyclist.
3. When driving kids home from sports practices in Oakland, often many folks riding their bikes at dark, without sufficient lights. Very stupid and dangerous.
"immigrants" i.e. illegal aliens.
Regarding immigrants from Latin American countries: if you're illiterate in your native language it seems unlikely that you can read street signs written in English, either.
Our children must be instructed to respect the pedestrian and biking habits of other cultures. These patterns add color and diversity to our lives.
Relevant and controversial post from Freakonomics on the perils of drunk walking versus drink driving.
http://freakonomics.com/2011/12/28/the-perils-of-drunk-walking/
The Onion must hate 2017.
Re: Achilles:
Next we will be asking people from Asia for pedestrian safety tips.
Pedestrian traffic deaths in US in 2016: 5,997, or approximately 1.85/100K
Pedetrian traffic deaths in Japan in 2016: 1,361, or approximately 1.07/100K.
Seems like a reasonable idea to me.
No doubt about it, immigrants are a lot harder to run over when they are on the sidewalk.
DKWalser said it all, I think.
In Sydney, the sidewalks are painted with LOOK RIGHT!! in enormous letters for those of us used to looking left before we cross the street.
In Cambridge the bikes now take up the entire lane with cars. I am a walker and it is fucking dangerous walking the fabulous streets of Cambridge and Boston. Bikes, cars, walkers everywhere! The activity is constant and makes me horny. People everywhere!
tits.
"No explanation of what the pedestrians are doing that's getting them killed by cars."
Toro! Hey, Toro!! (Watch this!) TORO!!!
So many people with solutions, they just need to find a few more problems.
I observe that minority pedestrians in Atlanta believe that the red hand at stoplights have no meaning and are not different from the white hands that signify it is safe to cross.
Yes, some things are cultural. In China NEVER step in front of any type of vehicle, you will get hit. Some places in Europe, the cars will stop. Here in the US I think a large part of the problem is that we have become a lawless nation. Car, bikes, trucks, pedestrians, so many do not follow the rules of the road.
They figured out how to get across the Rio Grande, but they can't cross a street?
Every pedestrian should travel in an M1 tank. If it saves just one life, it's worth it.
Sounds like a self-correcting problem to me.
You know, Darwin and all that.
Perhaps going to YouTube and looking for children's safety video might be a help. Even if it is a talking raccoon telling you how to cross the street locally, the advice is good.
In Tokyo at 4 in the morning I was walking in the Ginza. No cars. None. I came to an intersection and the light was against me. On the opposite side of the street a Japanese man stopped and waited for the light to change. No car. Rules followed to the letter. And that is why that year there were only 6 handgun murders in the country
Year-to-date bicyclist fatalities in Wisconsin are down by 70% per the Wisconsin DMV.
Come on, Badgers, let's get to work.
The numbers are statistically insignificant. This could be random differences.
That said, it is important to know the cultural expectations of any country you go to, including tips on how to cross the street. When I went to the Netherlands it was made very clear to me by multiple sources that bicycles have their own lanes and are not keen on slowing down for dumb pedestrians who wander into their territory.
We;ve got two sorts of immigrant related pedestrian driver issues in my leafy suburb of Los Angeles. We are home to the second largest single city population of Armenians in the world. Only Yerevan, the capitol of Armenia has more.
We have some very elderly Armenian people who get hit as they cross the street.
We also have some late teenage early 20's Armenian males driving fancy BMWs and Mercedes that their Dadddy gave them (or leased for them) tearing down our streets at 150% or more of the speed limit--oft times racing each other.
Many of those pedestrian fatalities are the result of the two groups meeting each other.
Blogger William said...
"Our children must be instructed to respect the pedestrian and biking habits of other cultures. These patterns add color and diversity to our lives."
Cultural lesson #1: In some cultures pedestrians signal their intent to randomly cross a street in mid-block by lifting a bottle in a brown paper bag to their lips. This cultural signal is commonly used near convenience stores which sell liquor.
Cultural lesson #2: In some cultures it is the right of cell phone users to cross the street at a diagonal without checking for traffic. However, the individual crossing the street must display "attitude" while carefully ignoring cars.
Cultural lesson #3: Riding bikes on sidewalks and ignoring crossing signals is encouraged in some cultures. These individuals can be identified by their bicycle's characteristics: The bicycle will be two sizes too small and the seat will be in the lowest possible position.
Rules followed to the letter.
During the Japanese tsunami a few years back, I read the tale of an American business executive that got caught on a road with no exit , with the tsunami coming from the rear. When he saw it, he immediately sped up to 70 mph or so and saw he was outrunning it by a wide margin. But in his rearview mirror (and ahead of him), he saw the Japanese driving at the speed limit--something like 28 mph--and the water and debris was gaining on them. He started blowing his horn and telling people to speed up, but no one listen. He said he saw the cars submerged, then tossed about. He made it to the first multistory building he saw ahead, one that looked substantial enough. There, he had a hard time getting people to join him on the upper floors, even though he spoke enough Japanese. They wouldn't even make an announcement on the PA--he had to grab the microphone. Still, many stayed--they had no business on those floors. They were found dead later.
Jerry Jeff Walker - La Freeway
When my wife and I were first dating, we walked across BYU's campus towards the business building where I'd parked my car. It was about 10 pm and there was no traffic on the street in front of the business building. I waited for the light to change before crossing the street. She commented as we crossed, "Oh, you're one of those." Not understanding her reference, I asked what "those" meant. She replied, "A rule follower."
At the time, I thought I'd lost some esteem in her eyes. Being a rule follower didn't sound attractive. After we were married, she told me it was one of the things she found most attractive about me.
Now they know what their mean Uncle meant when he told them to go play in traffic...and they were stupid enough to do so
Let 'em get killed. We need to reduce the population of stupid people, especially before they breed, anyway.
So I see no reason for classes on how to cross the street!
Dust Bunny Queen said...
Cultural issues in driving and pedestrian safety can be a real issue.
When you go to places where they drive on the opposite side of the road from the United States. England in particular....you'd BETTER learn to look right instead of left when crossing the street.
Bit of history trivia. During WWII Both British and German counter-intelligence services looked for people glancing the wrong way for traffic. And almost immediately began training their own spies to look in the other direction if they were to be inserted in enemy territory.
Death Race 2000
In a college town where I live there is a lot (and I mean a lot) of walking while texting (or reading cellphone screens, or whatever they are doing, only what they are doing is not watching out for other people). I realize that doesn't do much to explain (if that's what is needed) why immigrants have higher pedestrian deaths.
A fair and decent observation about not knowing how to cross the street, though there’s a bent here to blame not being taught instead of being responsibly self-taught, and the ignorant in Madison should not expect liberal mercies from "Dykes on Bikes" parades in San Francisco where Honey Riders will never give up their massively vibrating street machines, not for mere pedaling, but at least the impressive SF vibratory warnings can be heard from blocks away, pedestrians beware ...
When I came to Wisconsin from Virginia I was almost killed several times because I crossed streets at places other than the corners. You could not stop in the middle of the street and wait for the other lane to clear as was commonly done in Virginia. I don't say drivers aimed at me but they were not expecting me and quite evidently felt that acknowledging my presence in the middle of the street would only encourage wrong behavior and get me killed someday. I moved fast and learned fast and so now I cross at corners.
All the same I don't see that anyone is really explaining what is almost a doubling of pedestrian fatalities in one year. Is it all in one city? Is that city receiving a large number of immigrants, migrants, refugees? Or are immigrants, migrants, refugees being spread around Wisconsin with the result that there is no one to explain how to act in the here and now? There is a reason why immigrants clustered together when they first arrived in the old days - they could find out how to act from people who understood the cultural problem.
There are people that need to learn, or be taught, how to cross a street in such a way as to avoid being run over by a multi-ton vehicle? Really?
-sw
This is what happens when you fire Art Ross - 23 years of bicycle pedestrian coordination down the drain.
How much intelligence is required to keep from getting hit by a hurtling 2-ton hunk of metal?
I'm going to suspect a plague of walking while staring at the phone. That's what I see.
When I was in Korea I asked one of the hotel workers why they did not look for traffic before they crossed the street. Her answer: "Buddha take care."
I saw a poor woman just after she got hit in a Walmart parking lot today. I notice a shattered watermelon breaking apart as it rolled down the isle, the overturned cart and then the unfortunate woman lying in a fetal position on the hot pavement. Some people were rushing towards her to help but more people were whipping out their phone to take pictures, though one good samaritan was actually calling 911.
It is too bad she wasn't Korean.
A pedestrian exercising due care and prudence -- as he has an obligation to do so, an obligation that supersedes any statutory rules of the road -- then there is little likelihood of harm.
That means, whether you have the right of way or not --
--Stop.
--Look both ways. And look ahead. And look behind (for any vehicles that might be turning).
--Listen. That means take those damned earbuds out of your ears. Put down that damned phone.
--Cross only when vehicles are stopped or sufficiently far enough away.
--Also -- Assume that they WILL HIT YOU.
--Understand that whatever the damned rules are, a 2,000 or more pounds of metal running into you is going to do a hell of a lot more damage to you than you will to it.
It's not about rules and rights -- it's about being properly cautious and prudent. The problem today in our millennial, progressive world is that people feel entitled. Cars are supposed to stop for pedestrians. Period. And so they simply cross. Without stopping, without looking, without paying attention. Simply staring ahead like they are the only person in the whole universe.
Cross only when vehicles are stopped or sufficiently far enough away
In fact, try to make eye contact with the driver(s) before crossing.
And of course the first rule is -- You stay out of the way of the vehicles. Don't expect them to stay out of your way.
You can cross legally -- and still be negligent or reckless.
"Try to make eye contact with the driver(s) before crossing."
My completely anecdotal experience is that -- at least at a lawful crosswalk -- I'm more likely to have a driver wait for me if I *don't* make eye contact.
I suspect the thinking process is: (1) Eye contact: She knows I'm here, I can go now even though I'll pass within a few feet of her, she won't do anything stupid. (2) No eye contact: This stupid b***h doesn't even know I'm here. I'd better steer clear of her.
So I avoid eye contact -- but I pay great attention to what I can see in my peripheral vision.
1. Paint the crosswalks to look like rainbows
2. Mandatory audio crossing instructions in Mandarin, Arabic, and Esperanto
3. Get that moon-faced judge Kloppenberg (sp?) involved somehow
You're welcome, Wisconsin.
From reading these comments it's clear there are two things we must do to reverse this alarming carnage. Rid the streets of bicycles and Armenians.
Heck, you don't need to leave the country. Drivers in Maine are much more likely to avoid pedestrians than drivers in NY. I'd worry about a pedestrian moving out of Maine.
Mark said...
It's not about rules and rights -- it's about being properly cautious and prudent. The problem today in our millennial, progressive world is that people feel entitled. Cars are supposed to stop for pedestrians. Period. And so they simply cross. Without stopping, without looking, without paying attention. Simply staring ahead like they are the only person in the whole universe.
8/31/17, 8:47 PM
That is a huge pile of "victim blaming" right there! You can not expect any person to be responsible for their own well being nor take reasonable precautions to ensure their own safety! Would you dare suggest a woman NOT walk around at night piss drunk and wearing only a tank-top and mini-skirt with no panties on? Not today you wouldn't! That is victim blaming. Same here.
A pedestrian exercising due care and prudence -- as he has an obligation to do so, an obligation that supersedes any statutory rules of the road -- then there is little likelihood of harm.
That means, whether you have the right of way or not --
--Stop.
--Look both ways. And look ahead. And look behind (for any vehicles that might be turning).
--Listen. That means take those damned earbuds out of your ears. Put down that damned phone.
--Cross only when vehicles are stopped or sufficiently far enough away.
--Also -- Assume that they WILL HIT YOU.
--Understand that whatever the damned rules are, a 2,000 or more pounds of metal running into you is going to do a hell of a lot more damage to you than you will to it.
Behaving in the way you describe as an "obligation" will quickly get you killed when crossing a street in Italy (and in many other countries). You're view of what is "cautious and prudent" is premised on assumptions of how drivers will react to your crossing the street. Those assumptions are valid only for our culture. Other cultures have different expectations of behavior for drivers and pedestrians. It all works if drivers and pedestrians have common assumptions. It's dangerous when drivers and pedestrians have differing assumptions.
A related subject is the differing assumptions drivers make about other drivers' behavior. In America, when we see a problem on the road ahead, most of us hit the brake. Say, for example, two cars are about to enter an intersection at about the same time, with one car crossing the other's path. In America, both cars would try to stop. In Italy, the car entering the intersection 1st would accelerate (to get out of the way), and the second car would not slow down but would swerve to pass behind the first car. By not slowing down, the second car avoids causing problems for the cars behind it. The Italian way leads to fewer accidents, but they tend to be more serious since they take place at higher speeds.
Combine the American way with the Italian way and the results are apt to be disastrous. In my hypothetical above, if the first car is driven by an American, it won't accelerate out of the intersection, it will stop and the second car will hit it.
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