It is often said, “That person would have survived if they just looked both ways before crossing the street.” I would like to ask the question “How do you know that person didn’t?”

As someone who walks to work, before crossing the street I always look in every direction, even over my shoulder toward the back. Once I see that all vehicles have stopped, and none are coming, I cross the street.

Often, however, as my head and eyes continue to turn and scan for moving vehicles, a car will drive up to me that was not there before, that I did not see before.

Cars moving at 35 miles per hour, the speed limit of many roads that interact with people, is over 51 feet per second, or over five times the average car lane width (10 feet), over five lanes of traffic.

An average person walks about 3 miles per hour or 4.4 feet per second, less than half the average of one lane of traffic. The average vehicle covers about 11 times the distance the average person can in the same span of time.

This means that a car that was unseen, perhaps around a corner or very far away, can be next to a person within a second even just after a pedestrian steps off the curb or all the way to the other side of the street they are trying to cross.

This is not even factoring when drivers go over the speed limit, or demographics that usually walk slower: the elderly, people carrying things, those with disabilities, and families.

Laws restricting walking were not created with the intent of safety. They were created with the intent to cast blame.

A Culture Of Blame

For most of history roads were mix-use, dominated by people who walk or bicycle, traffic deaths were nearly non-existent. After the mass production of the automobile, the culture of blame began.

Along with public outcry, sales of cars began to slump, and the automobile industry began a campaign to blame those who walk. This is when the term jaywalking and laws restricting where people could walk started.

However, many countries have never had jaywalking laws while having far fewer pedestrian traffic fatalities than the United States. Data has shown that states and cities that have repealed jaywalking laws or reformed those laws have shown no increases in pedestrian fatalities.

In Hawaii, for all the blame that goes toward people who walk, it is often not backed by data. A law in Honolulu was passed banning texting on a cell phone while crossing the street, despite no one on Oahu ever dying doing so. The next year pedestrian fatalities doubled.

Over the span of 10 years, less than 8% pedestrian fatalities in Hawaii were a result of “pedestrian violation.” Even this data is skewed against pedestrians, as the person trying to cross the street may never be able to tell their side of events.

There is lots of anecdotal evidence of people seen crossing streets outside of crosswalks or crossing when there is no “Walk” signal, citing it as unsafe behavior. However, if the person doing these behaviors is not hit by a car, that is evidence of safe behavior. Chances are they’ve looked all directions, and determined it was safe.

I support people being cautious and looking all ways before they cross the street. I do this daily. However, safe walking behavior does not matter with infrastructure that puts people at the mercy of cars.

Currently, most roads that interact with people prioritize moving as many cars as possible over the safety of those who walk. Infrastructure improvements like Complete Streets by the City and County of Honolulu and speed tables by the state of Hawaii move us in the right direction, which data has shown to reduce traffic fatalities for an area where applied.

Walking is the most natural movement we do, it is the most environmentally clean form of transportation and is healthy for us. The culture needs to shift from assigning blame, which is often not based on data. This includes abolishing or reforming laws that restrict where and when people can walk.

From there the focus needs to shift to solutions like improving infrastructure. We should all support efforts that make it safer and convenient for us to walk.