By Marilyn K. Miller, AICP

On Christmas day my sister was hit by a car. She was bicycling on the Ojai Bike Trail and crossing the highway on a green light. A car made a right turn in front of her and she was forced to stop in the middle of the intersection to avoid a collision. Before she could get out of the way the next car did the job. My sister’s injuries are fairly serious, but she will heal. This is the third time she’s been hit, the second time she’s been hurt and she will probably stop riding even though she’s been a dedicated cyclist all her life.

One of my first reactions after I knew that she would be okay was anger. I’m angry that my sister’s pain was caused by a careless driver and could have been avoided, angry that she will lose work and income over what is expected to be a six week or longer recovery, angry that she’ll be deprived of an activity, cycling, that she so enjoyed. But in a larger sense, I am angry that the car has become so important in our lives that we accept as inevitable the mayhem it creates.

We readily exceed speed limits, text and talk on the phone while driving, drink and eat while driving, and even drive under the influence of alcohol or drugs because we have made the automobile a sacred right, when, in fact, it is a privilege that carries huge responsibility.

We pave over millions of acres of land for roads to drive on, bifurcating and destroying neighborhoods and ecosystems in the process, all to get from one point to the next as fast as possible. Millions of pounds of pollution are created from the first bolt in the undercarriage to the day it’s smashed and thrown into a landfill and we’ve accepted the impact of this damage as if it were unavoidable.

We have, in fact, reordered our world so that walking and bicycling as an option to the car is almost eliminated and we must drive to work, to shopping, to entertainment. We sacrifice our health and sanity by commuting more and more miles to work so that we can live in homes we have no time to enjoy.

Although cars are safer than they ever were, still 46,000 people die every year as a result of car accidents in this country. That’s like losing 150 jet airplanes, a statistic we would not tolerate in air travel.

Car crashes are the leading cause of death for people age 6 to 27. Every year 600 to 900 bicyclists die by being hit by cars. Speeding is the number one factor in the cause of over 20% of the fatal crashes when a cause is reported.

Also contributing to the cause of these accidents is failure to keep in the proper lane and driving under the influence. Statistics like these are staggering when you consider that they are a result of a choice someone made when they got behind the wheel. They are all preventable.

Bicyclists and pedestrians are particularly vulnerable when they are hit by a vehicle, for obvious reasons. They have no protection from the metal and plastic that plows into them. In 2008, 4,378 pedestrians were killed by cars. In most cases, the driver was exceeding 40 miles per hour. The fact is obvious that chance of death from a car declines considerably when the car is driving slower, from 85% at 40 mph to 5% at 20 mph. Yet we insist on speeding even in residential neighborhoods where children are present.

It’s not just the human population that is impacted by the car. A million vertebrates a day(!) are killed by automobiles, from squirrels and opossums to deer and other large mammals. The carnage we inflict spreads to every living thing. There are 4 million miles of public roadways in the U.S. that allow us the privilege of traveling from one end of the continent to another, but all of them come with a cost.

There are engineers, planners, and legislators who are working so reduce the number of deaths and injuries that occur on our roadways and make traveling by car, bicycle and walking safer for everyone.

Divided bicycle lanes provide a safer separation between a car and a biker, but the roads should be available for all modes of transportation. Narrower streets are favored by neo-traditional planners, but resisted by Fire Departments, trash collectors and even residents. Emergency vehicles are large, trash truck drivers are in a hurry and residents equate wide streets with privacy from their neighbors. But wide streets encourage speeding cars. Traffic calming devices are installed in some neighborhoods to slow traffic. These can include planters jutting into the roadway, parking on the street (imagine that!), speed humps, lit crosswalks, and roundabouts.

The problem is that we’ve become used to accommodating the car at the expense of humans. Consider that for most of us, the garage, the place our cars are supposed to go, is the biggest room in our house! A rethinking of our attitude toward the automobile and our relationship to it is required if we want to make our communities safer and more humane places to live. We can’t afford any longer to ignore the cost of unrestricted accommodation of cars.

We must make personal changes in our lifestyles and push for physical changes in our environment. Here are a few I’d like you to consider:

1) Slow down, obey traffic laws and be courteous on the road, particularly in urban and residential areas. Watch out for bicycles pedestrians and other vehicles using the roadway. Drivers are required to yield the right-of-way to pedestrians crossing the street even when there is no crosswalk. Bicycles have a right to use the road and are subject to the same traffic laws and automobiles.

2) Never get behind the wheel while impaired. Don’t text or use your cell phone while driving. Don’t engage in other distracting behavior while driving. I am astounded by the number of people I still see talking on their cell phone while driving even though it has been illegal in California for some time. The evidence is in: distracted drivers cause accidents – don’t do it!

3) Work out ways to avoid driving your car. Telecommute one or two days. Carpool, ride a bike or walk to work. If you can’t do that, consider moving closer to work or getting a job closer to home. Move out of the suburbs and into a more urban environment where services are within walking distance. Do whatever you can to reduce the amount you drive.

4) Support, donate money to and join a bicycle/pedestrian safety group.                                Educate people about the issues.

5) Promote, advocate and even demand that your community or city install traffic calming devices and pedestrian safety devices, and that they make efforts to enforce traffic laws. The hue and cry against photo enforced traffic lights has caused some of the cities that have installed them to rethink their decisions, but failure to obey traffic lights causes over 6% of fatal crashes, a type of accident that usually does not inflate airbags. These measures improve safety and should be encouraged.

My sister’s accident has reminded me to be more careful behind the wheel. It has also increased my frustration and even outrage over the extent of our dependence on the automobile and the amount of carnage we are willing to tolerate for the convenience. Consider the statistics I’ve cited above and maybe you will be outraged too.

Resources:

NHTSA’s National Center for Statistics and Analysis, www.nhtsa.gov

Pedestrian Accident Statistics, www.legalcatch.wordpress.com [not a direct link]

Pedestrian and Bicycling Information Center, www.bicyclinginfo.org
Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, www.saferoads.org