San Francisco Sees Pedestrian and Bicycle Accident Rates Increase in 2007
The effects of the move to bring down pollution and crowding levels in San Francisco by encouraging more people to bike or walk around are being felt in the increasing number of pedestrian and bicycle accidents on its roads. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the city witnessed a dramatic spike in the rates of pedestrian and bicycle accident related injuries in 2007. The number of people dying in traffic accidents in the city also increased by a whopping 50 percent, says a new report by the California Highway Patrol.
At least 32 people died in pedestrian accidents last year, which is an increase of nearly 50 percent from the year before. At least 800 pedestrians were injured. A total of 451 bicyclists were injured in San Francisco over the same period of time, which is an increase of 31 percent over the previous year. There was one fatal bicycle accident. The number of people killed in traffic accidents overall last year was 45, which was again an increase of 50 percent from the previous year.
City officials have hastened to add that these increases have little to do with dangerous roads. Instead, they are simply the result of a larger number of bicyclists and pedestrians on the streets of the city than last year. City Hall executives have launched a move to get more people walking and biking to reduce congestion levels on the streets, and clear the smog around town. Officials insist that the solution to these alarming accident rate increases is not to push pedestrians and bicyclists back into their cars and off the streets, but to make road conditions safer for them. This can be done a number of ways, from re-engineering the roads to create separate areas for bicyclists and pedestrians, to educating people about the rights of these groups of people to share the streets with motorists.
Bicycling and walking proponents complain that the need is to educate the motorists who ignore stop lights, make rash turns, and generally fail to obey traffic laws, making things difficult for the average Joe on his bicycle. They insist that stricter enforcement should be in place for motorists, and crosswalks should be made more visible. Also, there should be separate lanes for bikers and walkers, a long-pending move that has been languishing since 2006.
Pedestrian accidents are the most deadly of all collisions, and victims of these accidents make up half of the city’s traffic accident-related fatalities. In some areas however, that have been popular with red light jumpers, the injury rates for pedestrians have come down owing to the installation of enforcement cameras. There were just 388 accidents related to red light jumping this year, down by half from ten years ago.
The Reeves Law Group is a law firm with offices throughout California dedicated exclusively to the representation of personal injury victims, including victims of bicycle accidents. Please visit our website at trlglaw.com. If you desire a free consultation on a personal injury matter, please call us at (800) 644-8000 or email us.
