Designing streets for high speeds dramatically increases the likelihood that a person struck while walking will be killed. Slower speeds are directly connected to improving safety and reducing deaths. So what does it look like to prioritize safety over speed in practice?
Update (June 2022):
We created a new video to take these graphics and do a deeper dive on explaining this concept. Read about that video here, or find the embedded video from youtube below:
Why are the numbers of people struck and killed while walking going up? The biggest reason is that transportation agencies continue to prioritize speed over safety, often in ways that are hard to see. So what does this look like in practice? Let’s take a short visual tour.
Our thanks to Nelson/Nygaard for helping to produce these graphics in Dangerous by Design 2021 . You can also view a slideshow version of this graphic series at smartgrowthamerica.org/safety-or-speed
Speed or safety: choose only one