Reality is hard for us all in traffic. But it is harder for pedestrians.
And, who is responsible for the accidents they suffer? At first, we tend to think that drivers are the ones to blame, because they do not respect pedestrians.
But in some cases, pedestrians themselves cause accidents.
We feel safe. We think we are experts. It is only logical: we have been walking since our second year of life. Walking on our feet is something natural and mechanical. Walking is difficult only the first times, when we are still babies, and taking a few steps demands all of our attention. Afterward, it becomes mechanical and we do not think about it.
We go out on the street and enter the traffic system... without thinking that the action of moving in the shared space on the road involves an interdependency with the other elements of the system. We are not aware of the challenge this means.
Soldiers on foot
The word "peatón", Spanish for "pedestrian", comes from the French "piéton", which means "soldier on foot". How modern such an old expression can be! In spite of our experience in walking on the street, this action seems to be, sometimes and in some places, like a "battle", in which these "soldiers on foot", are bound to lose, as it was to be expected. If you doubt it, just take a look at some statistics:
In the city of Buenos Aires, according to the Statistics and Census Office of the Municipality, 9548 people were involved in traffic accidents in 1992, of which 2280 were pedestrians, with the highest mortality rate: 9%. That means that out of 339 fatalities caused by traffic accidents that year, 205 were pedestrians: 60% of the total.
And there's more: In 1993, out of 7200 fatalities due to traffic accidents in Argentina, approximately 50% were pedestrians: 3600 defeated soldiers.
In this uneven war, pedestrians, unlike drivers, have no hard exterior cover to protect them, nothing to cushion the impact of a crash. They have no motor to accelerate and move them away from danger, either.
Pedestrians are the weakest in the system... but they are also responsible
When we are faced with the death of a pedestrian, we tend to blame the driver. Many times, it is an accurate assesment. In other cases, it is the pedestrian himself who causes the accident:
In 1992, in the city of Buenos Aires, there were 1,000 pedestrians run over by cars and 352 by buses.
Maybe, in most of these cases, the accident was caused by a driver who crossed ignoring a red light or did not respect pedestrian priority. But regardless of who was right and who was wrong, in the end, the victim was a pedestrian.
Out of 2280 pedestrians run over, 205 died. From the rest, 12% suffered injuries that caused major and permanent disabilities.
What happened to the others? We do not know.
Most pedestrian accidents are caused when:
{pedestrian crosses at the middle of the street;
{pedestrian does not look both ways before crossing, or gets distracted when he does;
{pedestrian miscalculates the time that he has to cross the street.
There are other causes of accidents provoked by pedestrians.
"Self-confidence kills pedestrians", evidently. Ignorance also kills. To move on the streets in a vehicle we need a license that certifies, if only in theory, that we are capable enough to do it. But we do not need that to be pedestrians.
It would seem that no preparation is needed to walk on the street, and that would be true, if the street or route were not a shared space.
The traffic we suffer is made up by all of us in interdependency. It is a system organized and developed by man. If every member of the system would behave in the right way, respecting people, rules and signs, and practicing safety measures, we would not suffer so many accidents.
Pedestrians, private vehicle drivers, bus and taxi drivers, truck drivers, bikers and cyclists are all part of the traffic system, sharing that "everybody's land" that are public ways, where each person has rights and obligations.
Pedestrians have sidewalks as their exclusive areas; and they have the right of way to cross on corners or crosswalks, but they also need to respect traffic lights, if any.
So, each person has to be careful for himself and for the rest, since, no matter how responsible you may consider yourself, you never know what the attitude of the other road users will be.
Children as pedestrians
It is estimated that more than 15% of pedestrians involved in accidents are under 14 years old. They are one of the age groups most exposed to this danger.
Boys are involved in accidents three times more often than girls.
In the first years of their life, children face traffic as pedestrians. And when they start elementary school, many of them walk to school alone. Besides, many parents allow children, especially boys, to play on the street with their friends. The result of this are the figures mentioned above.
There are physical and psychological reasons why children, especially those under 9, are in a greater risk of danger in the traffic system. Let us see why:
{child's visual field is approximately 1/3 narrower than that of an adult;
{are shorter which diminishes their field of vision (so that, for example, when they are crossing a street and a car is coming towards them, they may not see the car behind it);
{to inexperience and lack of maturity, it is difficult for children to detect the direction of sound;
{are more easily distracted than adults in the presence of anything that calls for their attention;
{start to perceive danger at around 6-8 years old. Prior to this period, a situation that adults would avoid as being potentially dangerous, would not be recognized as such by them;
{are not able to accurately measure and calculate distance and speed of approaching vehicles on public ways;
{general, children tend to overestimate their strength and abilities.
That is the reason why protecting children's life on the streets is an unavoidable obligation for all adults. There are simple life-preserving habits that may help us do that:
- do not allow children under 8 to go on the street without an adult;
- do not allow children, of any age, to play ball or any other game on the street or sidewalk. Even older children run the risk of forgetting all precautions when tempted to follow a ball that falls on the street. Consequences are serious.
- teach them to behave in a cautious way by means of our own example as adults, showing them how we stop and look both ways before crossing (always on crosswalks or corners) and respecting traffic lights and any other sign.
The key to giving our children a safer world is that we start to build it right now.
Senior citizens are also in danger
The number of people over 60 years old that are involved in traffic accidents in Argentina grows each year. Approximately 25% of pedestrian fatalities in our country in 1993 were people within that age group.
The most common causes of these accidents are:
- they cross streets at any point and do not respect signs;
- their physical abilities are limited, specially those related to movement, vision and hearing, and they move without taking this fact into account. So, they miscalculate their chances of crossing a street safely.
In general, when someone has lived for many years without suffering a traffic accident, the person tends to overestimate his own ability and underestimate the danger that moving within the system involves.
In a way, all of us adults are sure that we know how to move. That is why, when hearing the story of an accident, it is common to hear the person involved say: "And I had always walked there without a problem", or "Nothing had ever happened to me there before", or "I don't understand how it happened".
But what never happens... happens suddenly one day.
Attention, attention, pay attention
Growing awareness and changed behaviors are the main resources to win this uneven battle.
Responsible and educated authorities who legislate consistently and enforce laws are needed for greater traffic safety. An infrastructure of adequate roads and signs is also needed. But without community awareness and education, our objective will hardly be reached.
Luchemos por la Vida has been working from the start to create awareness and educate the community and specially, pedestrians, by means of graphic, radio and TV campaigns. The most popular of them, the "Pay attention" rap, was designed to reach children and adults with clear indications to preserve life. The message is geared towards pedestrians, but also drivers, reminding them that crosswalks and corners are places where pedestrians have priority, and emphasizing once more the importance of traffic lights as protectors of life. The message also discourages children from playing on streets and sidewalks.
We know, for the feedback received through our work in schools, that the message has been perfectly understood by children, youth and adults.
Changes in behavior are taking place, though slowly. We have also worked with 4,000 children 10-13 years old, as part of our traffic safety education plan in schools, showing them the basic concepts of traffic as a system and safe behaviors for pedestrians.
An important step in the work with the educational community and society as a whole is the program called "Schools for Life", where municipalities sponsor traffic safety teaching at schools in their area.
To develop a new awareness on traffic safety, it is also important to engage mass media, be it written, radio, or TV, to show information about this subject, going beyond the anecdote of the report on certain accident that makes news on a day, to study more deeply what the causes of accidents are, and how they could be avoided. That is one of our ongoing activities.
We need the commitment of the community as a whole to help with this effort, and Luchemos is offering advice and work to develop plans for the prevention of traffic accidents in all of our country.
The invitation is open to all; the rest is a matter of conscience and ethics.
Pedestrians on the street in the dark
Walking in the night requires us to take special precautions, since visibility is diminished and human eyes are not specially adapted to see in the dark.
The speed at which vehicles drive on the road reduces the time available to perceive objects. That makes the situation even more difficult and increases danger on the road. That is why pedestrians walking in the night must not forget to:
- walk as far as possible from the edge of the sidewalk;
- walk facing traffic always;
- wear light colored clothes, preferably with spots of reflective materials to help distinguish them from the dark background (there are vests, tape and other reflective elements that can be worn at night, available now in our country).
Don't forget: Make yourself visible to live longer.
Crossing railroads
One person per day dies in some part of our country, run over by a train. That is why it is so important to:
- always stop and look both ways at a railroad crossing and do not avoid the "zigzag" barriers that force you to look both to the right and the left.
- "Be fast, don't beat the train". That is the legend on our posters. It is the way we chose to say that you need to give yourself time to cross, since a miscalculation or a slip are almost always fatal.
(This article appeared originally on "Luchemos por la Vida" magazine, No. 2 - 1994).