7 ms·

Why So Many Pedestrians in the U.S. Are Dying at Night

26 points by hoppyhoppy2 3y ago

h2odragon 3y ago
Car lights are blindingly bright now. Manufacturers have even remounted them so they "float" and when you hit a bump they point up for a moment. Makes for fun times on rough roads. People won't slow down at night, either.
- mannykannot 3y ago
  > People won't slow down at night, either. I imagine it's mostly the "fuck you" self-absorbed entitlement that leads to willfully distracted driving in general, but in addition, brighter lights may be encouraging this, even though they do not help anyone see when they are being blinded by other lights.
- idrios 3y ago
  I've noticed I can't see the road very well when I drive at night when there are lights from other cars on the road. I thought it was something wrong with my windshield, until my dad said he has the same problem and had thought it was something wrong with his eyes. So I think maybe you're right, it's actually gotten harder to see pedestrians
- NBJack 3y ago
  This is especially dangerous on dark, hilly roads at night. Each time these 'floating' headlight vehicles crest a hill, they temporarily blind other drivers. To say this was a short-sighted (no pun intended) design is an understatement.
- diogenescynic 3y ago
  It's pretty strange that there's no regulation over the brightness or height/angle of car lights. Some are right in your face with the brightness of daylight now... It's a recipe for disaster.
  - h2odragon 3y ago
    The reflected light from a normal view driving down the road is enough light to blind the driver, some times. We've got this one curve, with lots of nice bright signs... more people have gone off it since they put those up than used to before the signs.
  - whaleofatw2022 3y ago
    There is for angle and minimum brightness, however enforcement is rare. I've only seen or heard of it comeing up twice. The first time, my ex wife got a 'fix it' ticket because the body shop replaced a headlight but angled it wronger than wrong. The second time, a coworker had a busted headlight cover, got a fix-it ticket, and replaced it with a gatorade bottle creatively ziptied. He did intimate that it took a couple tries to get it right (due to the form of repair, they tried to use as much of the statue as possible to deny it was fixed.)
  - red-iron-pine 3y ago
    there are in some states, but rules vary and there is no federal / NTSB regs
- crazygringo 3y ago
  Is this a uniquely American thing? Is that what could explain a big part of the US vs Europe difference? Does Europe have headlight regulations the US doesn't?
  - h2odragon 3y ago
    ding ding ding! https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/blinded-light-american-headlight-safety-lags-years-countries-rcna82666 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/blinded-light-american-... https://www.aaa.com/AAA/common/AAR/files/ResearchReportEuroSpecvsUSHeadlamps.pdf https://www.aaa.com/AAA/common/AAR/files/ResearchReportEuroS...
    - crazygringo 3y ago
      Oh wow that's crazy. Thank you! I'm kind of shocked the article doesn't even mention headlights as a possibility at all. Especially when the divergence starts around 2012, the exact year it says that adaptive headlights became available in Europe.
      - gamblor956 3y ago
        My Outback has adaptive headlights but it doesn't seem to actually stop my car from blinding oncoming drivers.
- aidenn0 3y ago
  Don't forget lifted pickup trucks with HID lamps. I had one of those pass me and I could see nothing but the tail lights of other cars for about 30s afterwards.
bell-cot 3y ago
> “It’s purely an effect of daylight or darkness — and it’s huge for pedestrians,” said Michael Flannagan, a retired professor at the University of Michigan. > In the dark, pedestrians are harder to see than other road users. They typically don’t wear reflective gear or lights, and their outerwear is often dark in color. American roads also weren’t particularly engineered with this risk in mind. I often drive around Ann Arbor (home to U of M), and there are a lot of oblivious idiot pedestrians, both day and night. For the college students, I sometimes wonder if their dangerous actions are assertions of their social status. "See all the grown-ups in fancy cars slow / brake / swerve for me!"
- Mountain_Skies 3y ago
  While I never did something like that as a middle finger to the grown-ups in fancy cars, I did it as an angry pedestrian one night upset because the sidewalks next to a five lane one-way street were peppered with "Sidewalk closed, cross to other side" signs forcing me to keep crossing the very large street with lots of high speed traffic. What pushed me over the edge was a point at which the sidewalks on both sides of the street were closed and both that arrows pointing to the other side as where pedestrians should go. I was upset with the city government for allowing so many sidewalk segments to be closed and for whoever approved of both sides being closed at the same time, both the signs instructing pedestrians to use the other side.
  - bell-cot 3y ago
    Ann Arbor is fairly equal-opportunity that way - the roads & sidewalks are user-hostile for drivers, bicyclists, and pedestrians.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
mannykannot 3y ago
The rising rate of nighttime deaths (unlike the daytime rate, which is falling) seems unique to the US, and the article suggests cellphone use is part of the problem: It’s perhaps not surprising then that Americans spend nearly three times as much time interacting with their phones while driving as drivers in Britain, according to smartphone data collected by Cambridge Mobile Telematics. I would not be surprised if phone use by pedestrians is also higher in the US - which is not to suggest that pedestrians are largely responsible for the rise.
- radicality 3y ago
  Live in NYC, just few days ago I saw two women walking together on a busy sidewalk, both glued to their phones. Then one of them walked straight into a large visible scaffolding support pole.
  - NBJack 3y ago
    The problem is indeed two-sided. Distracted drivers, and distracted pedestrians.
    - hardcopy 3y ago
      You should read this book. https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/There-Are-No-Accidents/Jessie-Singer/9781982129682 https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/There-Are-No-Accident...
  - netsharc 3y ago
    Live in a European city, I got off a tram and I and 2 other people wanted to cross a small 2-lane street (both lanes going the same direction). The near lane is free, but the far lane is busy with cars coming (but at a slow speed) because they're coming up to a red light. So I and another pedestrian took a step back off the near lane to stand on the sidewalk of the tram stop, meanwhile the 3rd pedestrian, glued to her phone, is standing in the middle of the near lane waiting for the cars of the far lane to come to a stop. I was totally bemused, she didn't seem to realize at all she was in the middle of the road, luckily there were no cars coming. Then again the level of driver attention where I live is very good, they would've spotted her. On Instagram I see a lot of car crashes, mostly from the US and China. It seems like a lot of drivers go at a very high speed and are distracted...
Mountain_Skies 3y ago
I recently moved to another state and failed the driver's license eye exam for the first time in my life. For years I've been annoyed with poor reflectivity on street signs and lane markers, now I know that it really was that my night vision had declined. Two interesting things from this: my optometrist has never commented on my night vision being impaired beyond asking if I'm bothered by approaching headlights causing glare and the last time my vision was checked by a state government was sometime in the mid 1990s. I don't have reason to drive at night all that often and usually wear my glasses at night anyway but I wonder how long my vision has been impaired enough that I should have been legally required to wear glasses, at least at night. Wonder how many other people have similar night vision that has slowly declined over time without them noticing nor their state knowing about it.
- wrycoder 3y ago
  You really should visit an ophthalmologist, not an optometrist.
OnionBlender 3y ago
In Seattle, someone was intentionally hitting pedestrians at night while recording video. Seattle Police video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_T1nazrm28U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_T1nazrm28U
- jstarfish 3y ago
  Happened in Vegas too. Some kids ran over a retired police chief and attempted a few others. > Police said Keys was driving during the first hit-and-run and, while a passenger, recorded footage of the vehicle striking Probst. https://abcnews.go.com/US/retired-police-chief-killed-las-vegas-hit-and-run/story?id=103506086 https://abcnews.go.com/US/retired-police-chief-killed-las-ve...
  - Eumenes 3y ago
    Ding-dong ditch has taken a dark turn
    - iAMkenough 3y ago
      Maybe once the economy finally starts trickling down, we'll have a reason to behave ourselves again
  - sneed_chucker 3y ago
    Ah. Perpetrators are minors and will get lax sentences. They will likely kill again as adults before any effective legal action is taken, and maybe not even then (see Darrell E. Brooks Jr. and Jason Billingsley)
    - supertrope 3y ago
      In many US jurisdictions if kill or maim a pedestrian by striking them with your car the police won’t even cite you. This assumes you do not flee the scene and are not intoxicated. Some criminals do flee the scene and claim they thought they struck a deer.
FinalDestiny 3y ago
https://archive.is/7mfli https://archive.is/7mfli
battery_glasses 3y ago
The article doesn't mention window tint...but I couldn't imagine that is having 0 effect. Anecdotally about half the cars I see have very dark tint on the driver and passenger window, making it nearly impossible to see a pedestrian through it at night when making a turn. I know tinting these windows used to be illegal in my city, but a few years ago they stopped doing emissions testing and that was the main place they ticketed violations for tint, so its completely unenforced now.
- Eumenes 3y ago
  In some states, if you have sensitivity to lights at night, you can get a tinted windshield RX from your eye doctor which can be shown to state inspectors
  - diogenescynic 3y ago
    The doctors who write those RX should be liable for the pedestrians killed by their patients.
netsharc 3y ago
In Estonia and Finland it's mandatory to wear reflectors: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ES5rdzutEeo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ES5rdzutEeo / https://www.foreignersinfinland.fi/post/the-great-finnish-invention-that-promotes-safety https://www.foreignersinfinland.fi/post/the-great-finnish-in... I realize now why my winter jacket has reflectors on the wrists, I bought it in Iceland...
- marssaxman 3y ago
  That law feels uncomfortably close to victim-blaming!
  - netsharc 3y ago
    Hmm... could laws mandating brake lights on cars be categorized the same? Why not get rid of brake lights and expect the drivers behind to be more attentive? Pedestrians wearing dark clothes can be nearly invisible, I feel like mandating that "participants of traffic" be visible is fine...
- red-iron-pine 3y ago
  US military does the same with PT gear. A lot of running shoes also have reflective strips in them by default

26 points by hoppyhoppy2 3y ago

Car lights are blindingly bright now. Manufacturers have even remounted them so they "float" and when you hit a bump they point up for a moment. Makes for fun times on rough roads. People won't slow down at night, either.

mannykannot 3y ago
> People won't slow down at night, either. I imagine it's mostly the "fuck you" self-absorbed entitlement that leads to willfully distracted driving in general, but in addition, brighter lights may be encouraging this, even though they do not help anyone see when they are being blinded by other lights.
idrios 3y ago
I've noticed I can't see the road very well when I drive at night when there are lights from other cars on the road. I thought it was something wrong with my windshield, until my dad said he has the same problem and had thought it was something wrong with his eyes. So I think maybe you're right, it's actually gotten harder to see pedestrians
NBJack 3y ago
This is especially dangerous on dark, hilly roads at night. Each time these 'floating' headlight vehicles crest a hill, they temporarily blind other drivers. To say this was a short-sighted (no pun intended) design is an understatement.
diogenescynic 3y ago
It's pretty strange that there's no regulation over the brightness or height/angle of car lights. Some are right in your face with the brightness of daylight now... It's a recipe for disaster.
- h2odragon 3y ago
  The reflected light from a normal view driving down the road is enough light to blind the driver, some times. We've got this one curve, with lots of nice bright signs... more people have gone off it since they put those up than used to before the signs.
- whaleofatw2022 3y ago
  There is for angle and minimum brightness, however enforcement is rare. I've only seen or heard of it comeing up twice. The first time, my ex wife got a 'fix it' ticket because the body shop replaced a headlight but angled it wronger than wrong. The second time, a coworker had a busted headlight cover, got a fix-it ticket, and replaced it with a gatorade bottle creatively ziptied. He did intimate that it took a couple tries to get it right (due to the form of repair, they tried to use as much of the statue as possible to deny it was fixed.)
- red-iron-pine 3y ago
  there are in some states, but rules vary and there is no federal / NTSB regs
crazygringo 3y ago
Is this a uniquely American thing? Is that what could explain a big part of the US vs Europe difference? Does Europe have headlight regulations the US doesn't?
- h2odragon 3y ago
  ding ding ding! https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/blinded-light-american-headlight-safety-lags-years-countries-rcna82666 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/blinded-light-american-... https://www.aaa.com/AAA/common/AAR/files/ResearchReportEuroSpecvsUSHeadlamps.pdf https://www.aaa.com/AAA/common/AAR/files/ResearchReportEuroS...
  - crazygringo 3y ago
    Oh wow that's crazy. Thank you! I'm kind of shocked the article doesn't even mention headlights as a possibility at all. Especially when the divergence starts around 2012, the exact year it says that adaptive headlights became available in Europe.
    - gamblor956 3y ago
      My Outback has adaptive headlights but it doesn't seem to actually stop my car from blinding oncoming drivers.
aidenn0 3y ago
Don't forget lifted pickup trucks with HID lamps. I had one of those pass me and I could see nothing but the tail lights of other cars for about 30s afterwards.

bell-cot 3y ago

> “It’s purely an effect of daylight or darkness — and it’s huge for pedestrians,” said Michael Flannagan, a retired professor at the University of Michigan. > In the dark, pedestrians are harder to see than other road users. They typically don’t wear reflective gear or lights, and their outerwear is often dark in color. American roads also weren’t particularly engineered with this risk in mind. I often drive around Ann Arbor (home to U of M), and there are a lot of oblivious idiot pedestrians, both day and night. For the college students, I sometimes wonder if their dangerous actions are assertions of their social status. "See all the grown-ups in fancy cars slow / brake / swerve for me!"

Mountain_Skies 3y ago
While I never did something like that as a middle finger to the grown-ups in fancy cars, I did it as an angry pedestrian one night upset because the sidewalks next to a five lane one-way street were peppered with "Sidewalk closed, cross to other side" signs forcing me to keep crossing the very large street with lots of high speed traffic. What pushed me over the edge was a point at which the sidewalks on both sides of the street were closed and both that arrows pointing to the other side as where pedestrians should go. I was upset with the city government for allowing so many sidewalk segments to be closed and for whoever approved of both sides being closed at the same time, both the signs instructing pedestrians to use the other side.
- bell-cot 3y ago
  Ann Arbor is fairly equal-opportunity that way - the roads & sidewalks are user-hostile for drivers, bicyclists, and pedestrians.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

mannykannot 3y ago

The rising rate of nighttime deaths (unlike the daytime rate, which is falling) seems unique to the US, and the article suggests cellphone use is part of the problem: It’s perhaps not surprising then that Americans spend nearly three times as much time interacting with their phones while driving as drivers in Britain, according to smartphone data collected by Cambridge Mobile Telematics. I would not be surprised if phone use by pedestrians is also higher in the US - which is not to suggest that pedestrians are largely responsible for the rise.

radicality 3y ago
Live in NYC, just few days ago I saw two women walking together on a busy sidewalk, both glued to their phones. Then one of them walked straight into a large visible scaffolding support pole.
- NBJack 3y ago
  The problem is indeed two-sided. Distracted drivers, and distracted pedestrians.
  - hardcopy 3y ago
    You should read this book. https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/There-Are-No-Accidents/Jessie-Singer/9781982129682 https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/There-Are-No-Accident...
- netsharc 3y ago
  Live in a European city, I got off a tram and I and 2 other people wanted to cross a small 2-lane street (both lanes going the same direction). The near lane is free, but the far lane is busy with cars coming (but at a slow speed) because they're coming up to a red light. So I and another pedestrian took a step back off the near lane to stand on the sidewalk of the tram stop, meanwhile the 3rd pedestrian, glued to her phone, is standing in the middle of the near lane waiting for the cars of the far lane to come to a stop. I was totally bemused, she didn't seem to realize at all she was in the middle of the road, luckily there were no cars coming. Then again the level of driver attention where I live is very good, they would've spotted her. On Instagram I see a lot of car crashes, mostly from the US and China. It seems like a lot of drivers go at a very high speed and are distracted...

Mountain_Skies 3y ago

I recently moved to another state and failed the driver's license eye exam for the first time in my life. For years I've been annoyed with poor reflectivity on street signs and lane markers, now I know that it really was that my night vision had declined. Two interesting things from this: my optometrist has never commented on my night vision being impaired beyond asking if I'm bothered by approaching headlights causing glare and the last time my vision was checked by a state government was sometime in the mid 1990s. I don't have reason to drive at night all that often and usually wear my glasses at night anyway but I wonder how long my vision has been impaired enough that I should have been legally required to wear glasses, at least at night. Wonder how many other people have similar night vision that has slowly declined over time without them noticing nor their state knowing about it.

wrycoder 3y ago
You really should visit an ophthalmologist, not an optometrist.

OnionBlender 3y ago

In Seattle, someone was intentionally hitting pedestrians at night while recording video. Seattle Police video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_T1nazrm28U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_T1nazrm28U

jstarfish 3y ago
Happened in Vegas too. Some kids ran over a retired police chief and attempted a few others. > Police said Keys was driving during the first hit-and-run and, while a passenger, recorded footage of the vehicle striking Probst. https://abcnews.go.com/US/retired-police-chief-killed-las-vegas-hit-and-run/story?id=103506086 https://abcnews.go.com/US/retired-police-chief-killed-las-ve...
- Eumenes 3y ago
  Ding-dong ditch has taken a dark turn
  - iAMkenough 3y ago
    Maybe once the economy finally starts trickling down, we'll have a reason to behave ourselves again
- sneed_chucker 3y ago
  Ah. Perpetrators are minors and will get lax sentences. They will likely kill again as adults before any effective legal action is taken, and maybe not even then (see Darrell E. Brooks Jr. and Jason Billingsley)
  - supertrope 3y ago
    In many US jurisdictions if kill or maim a pedestrian by striking them with your car the police won’t even cite you. This assumes you do not flee the scene and are not intoxicated. Some criminals do flee the scene and claim they thought they struck a deer.

FinalDestiny 3y ago

https://archive.is/7mfli https://archive.is/7mfli

battery_glasses 3y ago

The article doesn't mention window tint...but I couldn't imagine that is having 0 effect. Anecdotally about half the cars I see have very dark tint on the driver and passenger window, making it nearly impossible to see a pedestrian through it at night when making a turn. I know tinting these windows used to be illegal in my city, but a few years ago they stopped doing emissions testing and that was the main place they ticketed violations for tint, so its completely unenforced now.

Eumenes 3y ago
In some states, if you have sensitivity to lights at night, you can get a tinted windshield RX from your eye doctor which can be shown to state inspectors
- diogenescynic 3y ago
  The doctors who write those RX should be liable for the pedestrians killed by their patients.

netsharc 3y ago

In Estonia and Finland it's mandatory to wear reflectors: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ES5rdzutEeo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ES5rdzutEeo / https://www.foreignersinfinland.fi/post/the-great-finnish-invention-that-promotes-safety https://www.foreignersinfinland.fi/post/the-great-finnish-in... I realize now why my winter jacket has reflectors on the wrists, I bought it in Iceland...

marssaxman 3y ago
That law feels uncomfortably close to victim-blaming!
- netsharc 3y ago
  Hmm... could laws mandating brake lights on cars be categorized the same? Why not get rid of brake lights and expect the drivers behind to be more attentive? Pedestrians wearing dark clothes can be nearly invisible, I feel like mandating that "participants of traffic" be visible is fine...
red-iron-pine 3y ago
US military does the same with PT gear. A lot of running shoes also have reflective strips in them by default