USA Today: Florida leads nation in ped and cyclist deaths

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Permalink Reply by Matt AKA Jimbo/BMXican on March 1, 2010 at 12:55am

Florida = old people Old people = Crappy drivers

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Permalink Reply by Ron on March 1, 2010 at 7:50am

No, Probably more Drunks and Young Party Idiots

Matt AKA Jimbo/BMXican said:

Florida = old people Old people = Crappy drivers

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Permalink Reply by Anne Alt on March 1, 2010 at 3:21pm

Lots of drunks + party idiots + old people = deadly combination

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Permalink Reply by h' Zerocats on March 1, 2010 at 3:49pm

Here ya's go:
http://www.statemaster.com/graph/peo_per_of_res_ove_the_age_of_65-p...
I'd like a correlative study please, results in my inbox by 8 AM tomorrow.

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Permalink Reply by burden on March 1, 2010 at 8:34pm

I guess I might suggest that focusing on "crappy drivers" isn't particularly useful in figuring out what's going on here.

For one thing, old people are not the problem. In fact, pedestrians over 70 are disproportionately at risk of being killed by a car.

That is, statistically, old people are not especially scary drivers (if you want to fear an age group, fear everyone under 30!), and are the most likely age group to be killed while walking -- they're probably very well-represented amongst the victims here.

Personally, I'm inclined to wonder what we expected would happen when we built places like this:

The article in question tells us that FDOT's "chief safety officer" doesn't see it that way:

"The roadways aren't as dangerous as the (study) would have made it seem," she says. "It's not the roads. The roads are just sitting there by themselves."

Right. Those roads are just sitting there, like natural features of the landscape. Nobody decided to build them, least of all the Department of Transportation. Ponce de Leon was probably like, "Hey, check out these roads, just sitting here by themselves! I wish we had cars!" There couldn't possibly be a connection between roadway design and the safety of people who aren't in cars, because that would mean our demand for a certain kind of road to support our always-drive-everywhere lifestyle makes even "good drivers" complicit when pedestrians and cyclists die. And how could we admit that? It must be old people at fault, or drunks. Or maybe those losers who walk or ride bikes just need to get with the program and then everything will be alright.

Anyway, carry on.

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