Pedestrian deaths on rise in Utah

Utah's pedestrian fatalities for 2006 are on the rise and are already approaching last year's total, even though the number of pedestrian-related crashes is steadily decreasing.

The Utah Department of Health reports 27 people died in Utah's pedestrian/motor vehicle accidents during 2005 — the lowest total in eight years. But in 2006, 20 people had been killed by vehicles as of July, according to the Department of Health. However, traffic reports show overall pedestrian-related crashes have consistently decreased over the past decade.

Cyndi Bemis, Violence and Injury Prevention Program education coordinator with the Department of Health, said about 56 people per 100,000 were struck by vehicles statewide in 1995, but that number decreased in 2004 to approximately 40 — a 28.6 percent decrease.

Bemis said the accident rate decreased because fewer people are walking, not because motorists and pedestrians are safer than 10 years ago.

Pedestrians are 20 times more likely to be killed in a collision with a vehicle than are the occupants of the vehicle, Injury Prevention Coordinator Gary Mower said. Simple physics alone — the weight of the car multiplied by its velocity — can calculate an individual's chances of survival when struck.

Mower cited studies showing that if a car strikes a person at 40 mph, there is an 80 percent chance that individual will die. That person's chances of survival rise to 50 percent if the car is going 30 mph, while the person's survival chances increase to about 95 percent at 20 mph.

Traffic injury reports for 1995-2004 reveal 66 percent of pedestrian victims were male. Mower said accurate pedestrian injury reports for the past two years aren't compiled yet, but he said more males than females are consistently injured or killed in these accidents each year. He also said a third of all people hit or killed by a car are 14 years old or younger.

August ranks first for most pedestrian fatalities, with a total of 53 over a 10-year period. The Department of Health reports July is the second deadliest month with 50 reported deaths over the same time period. Of all the days of the week, more people died in pedestrian accidents on Friday and Saturday. Mower said more people are outside during those months and days of the week, which explains why more people are struck.

Mower sees several factors that contribute to most pedestrian-related accidents.

First, engineers design many Utah roadways with cars in mind, he said, not pedestrians. Many of the streets are very wide, which creates a precarious situation for pedestrians trying to cross.