Interesting Statistics about Pedestrians deaths, is the reduction do to people no longer walking?

[happyslug]

• Four states — California, Texas, Florida and New York — accounted for 43 percent of U.S. pedestrian deaths in 2013.

• Pedestrians age 70 or older have always had the highest per capita fatality rate, but the rate has dropped from 9.3 per 100,000 to 2.2 since 1975. Children up to age 12 accounted for 21 percent of the pedestrian fatalities in 1975 but that has fallen to 4 percent. Deaths among people ages 20 to 69 made up 48 percent of the pedestrian fatality total in 1975 but that has risen to 76 percent.

• Seventy percent of the fatalities in 2013 occurred between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m. Of those 16 and older who were killed, 36 percent had blood alcohol levels at or above the 0.08 threshold for driving under the influence.

http://www.post-gazette.com/news/transportation/2015/02/28/Study-finds-pedestrian-deaths-up-40-in-Pa/stories/201502280071

In 1975 you had to be born in 1905, turn 16 in 1921. If you live in Rural American you learned to drive in the 1920s, but if you lived in Urban America (And that is most people after 1920, the 1920 US Census is the first US Census with more people living in Urban areas than Rural Areas) you waited till after WWII. Upper Middle Class White men and women did learn to drive in the 1920s and 1940s, but working class (The vast majority of people in Urban America) did not FULLY embrace the Automobile till after WWII (Car usage increased in the 1920s and 1930s, but no where NEAR the increase in the post WWII era).

I bring this up for most elderly people in the 1970s thought nothing of walking anywhere and/or taking the bus. Their adult children, born in the 1930s onward, were a different ball game, they all drove if it was possible. This tendency to drive INCREASED with those born in the 1950s and 1960s. Thus the drop in the number of people over age 70 killed as pedestrians, may be do to the fact those over age 70 today, came of age during a period when as teenagers they all wanted to drive (i.e. born AFTER 1940 and come of age starting in 1956 when they turned 16). The 70 year old in 1975 would have opt to walk or take the bus, which were his options when he turned 16 in 1921, but today's 70 year old opts for the Automobile that he wanted to drive when he was 16 in 1956.

I know this is a bicycle forum but the change in Pedestrian Death rate since 1975 and WHY that has occurred can be compared to the increase in the us of bicycles over the last 20 years and how that will reflect mobility in 50 years.

[olddots]

1. I would love to live with no personal motor vehicles

A pipe dream but what the hell , the concept of driving to the gym is absurd .

In L.A. you feel humiliated for walking and feel like you should wear a target if you ride a bike .

[happyslug]

2. Yes I thought of the old movie scene, where a family....

Yes I thought of the old movie scene, where a family where the family all piles into their station wagon to drive to visit their friends, and the car pulls out of the driveway, goes one house down the street and pulls into that driveway and everyone runs out of the station wagon. If I remember right is was a Steven Martin performance.

It was a great comment on transportation today, we only think in terms of driving, walking, biking even taking public transportation is NOT on anyone's radar.