637 - Why Are So Many Pedestrians Getting Struck and Killed By Cars, and Why Aren't We Doing More To Stop It?
Public Health On Call
The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
4.6 • 644 Ratings
🗓️ 17 July 2023
⏱️ 13 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In the last decade, a record number of pedestrians were killed by cars. The problem is complex and lacking a singular cause or solution. Jeff Michael, now a researcher at the Johns Hopkin Center for Injury Research and Policy, spent 30 years with the National Highway Traffic Safety Adminstration. He talks with Stephanie Desmon about the rise in pedestrian deaths and some of the possible causes, looking to Sweden as a model for rethinking our roads, and why despite hundreds of deaths a day, preventing road fatalities still gets short shrift in the overall conversation of transportation safety.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Public Health On Call, a podcast from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, |
| 0:05.9 | where we bring evidence, experience, and perspective to make sense of today's leading health challenges. |
| 0:16.3 | If you have questions or ideas for us, please send an email to public health question at jh. |
| 0:21.6 | Jh.edu. |
| 0:22.6 | That's public health question at jh.u.edu for future podcast episodes. |
| 0:29.6 | This is Lindsay Smith Rogers. |
| 0:33.6 | Today, Stephanie Desmond talks to Jeff Michael, a distinguished scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Injury Research and Policy, and a former federal traffic safety official, about the alarming rate of pedestrian deaths, 100 a day being seen around the U.S. |
| 0:50.6 | They discuss how difficult it is to change behavior and some strategies that could spark a reduction in deaths. |
| 0:57.0 | Let's listen. |
| 0:58.8 | Jeff Michael, thanks so much for joining me. |
| 1:01.5 | Well, thank you very much, Stephanie. |
| 1:02.7 | Nice to be with you. |
| 1:04.1 | I wanted to talk today about sort of the record, or at least record for the last 40 years in pedestrian road death. |
| 1:13.9 | You know, I called on you because before you came to Hopkins, you spent 30 years with the National |
| 1:18.6 | Highway Traffic Safety Administration. And so I know you've been following this for a very long time. |
| 1:24.1 | So talk to me about sort of what the numbers look like and why we should be concerned. |
| 1:31.6 | Well, thanks again for your interest in this area. |
| 1:35.0 | It doesn't get enough attention. |
| 1:37.1 | The number of pedestrian fatalities is just alarming. |
| 1:41.2 | It's gone up almost 80% over the past decade, between 2010 and 2020. It's really |
| 1:49.8 | worrying. It's still, you know, it's not the greatest part of motor vehicle crash deaths. |
| 1:57.8 | It's approaching 20% of motor vehicle crash deaths. But these are people, you know, |
... |
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