Iowa Pedestrian Injuries and Deaths - News Roundup Continued

Again today we continue with several more pedestrian-car-truck-bus-train collision news items. As I previously stated, there are so many of them just since the first of the year. After reading too many pedestrian-accident reports I suggest that both drivers and pedestrians pay more attention to what’s ahead or what’s coming. Today we’ll look at one additional news item that adds to our investigation into what themes or reasons (causes) as to why pedestrians get struck so much.  By analyzing how pedestrians get into accidents with motor vehicles maybe we can avoid finding ourselves in this situation.   Today we start off in the windy city, Chicago, Illinois.

Chicago, Illinois – Forget about Chicago for this blog post because there are more than 1,000 pedestrian-car-truck-motorcycle collisions every year in the City of Chicago. I don’t have enough time or ink to write about them all.  The people of Chicago need to be more vigilant than in rural areas. I’ll devote an entire post or series of posts to just the inner city of Chicago. For today let’s look at Virginia.

Harrisonburg, Virginia – January 2009 – Three pedestrian deaths have occurred so far this year in Virginia. Two are discussed by the Times Dispatch News. One should be of interest to many of our readers. A 55-year-old woman was jogging “north in the southbound lane of South Main Street when she was struck by a car 273 feet north of West Fairview Avenue at 5:20 a.m. Anderson, a Harrisonburg resident, died at the scene.”

Richmond, Virginia – January 2009 – A Richmond lawyer in discussing the death of a pedestrian offers what we think is sound advice for pedestrians:

“This accident is a sad reminder that it is important to slow down and try and be aware of pedestrians and bicyclists that share the roads with cars.  It seems that there have been more people walking and biking lately and they often have no sidewalks or separate lane to use in their travels.”

Drivers need to remember and get used to sharing the road with bicyclists, pedestrians and other slower traffic. Getting angry at them or being impatient with the slower traffic doesn’t help avoid an accident. Frightening the slower traffic isn’t going to get you any faster to your destination. Try being considerate, you’ll be surprised at the reaction from most of your fellow mankind.