Risk of severe injury or death for pedestrians dramatically increases with speed

A pedestrian struck by a car driving at 20 mph has a 7% chance of being killed. A pedestrian struck by a car driving at 40 mph has a 45% chance of being killed.  A recent article  from ProPublica explains why decreasing speed in urban areas can make a difference and protect pedestrians from being killed by cars. The article comes with a very interesting interactive chart that shows the chances of pedestrians of different ages being killed by cars driving at any rate of speed.

The chart especially shows how much more dangerous it is for older pedestrians to get ht by a car. It also highlights that after 25 mph the chances of getting killed increase extremely quickly.

This is one of the main reasons why as part of the Vision Zero Imitative to decrease pedestrian death, Mayor De Blasio decreased the default’s city speed from 30 mph to 25 mph.

See the interactive chart and read the complete article here