There have been an alarming number of pedestrian fatalities on Toronto roads so far this year – 14 in fact. This has got our local politicians looking for solutions. Bill Saundercook, who co-chairs the City’s pedestrian committee is lobbying to lower speed limits in spots with high pedestrian activity. That in itself won’t help. However, it will attract several cops every day to ticket speeders, and the presence of the cops will slow down the traffic. Will slower speeds translate to less fatalities? Who knows.
It is now illegal for drivers to talk on a cell phone (unless it is hands-free) while driving in these parts. From what I see every day, that law is mostly being ignored. Maybe that’s because it isn’t being enforced, I don’t know. I don’t know if it is reasonable to draw a link between drivers using cell phones while driving and drivers hitting pedestrians. Sometimes pedestrians are distracted too, either on the phone or plugged into some tunes.
We’ve also noticed an increase in recent years of those people Tuffy P calls “floaters”, people who wander out into the street seemingly oblivious to their surroundings, crossing without even looking. As a driver, it’s hard to predict what a floater is going to do at any time.
Mayor Miller has talked about expediting “a plan”. One good thing the City has done and continues to do is install countdown signals. I think these are really helpful because it lets both drivers and pedestrians know exactly when the light will change.
Some will advocate getting cars out of the City completely. Perhaps that’s the way our cities will evolve. The question is how to make it work. It isn’t something that is likely to gather nearly enough support in the short term to become a reality.
Meanwhile, as my friend Dinners says, be careful out there.
27th Street 
Less car accidents happen when less people drive cars. Wow, it’s so simple! Changing speed layws may help but enforcing peopel to follow common sense unfortunately is not something we’ve ever been able to succeed.
There are all kinds of studies that correlate talking on cell phones and texting while driving (yes, some people actually text while driving!) Hands free cell phone talking doesn’t have the same deadly stats as using a hand held cell phone or texting device. Again, wow it’s so simple!
Oprah had a show last week about texting and hand held cell phone correlated accidents. There are lots of stats available here are some:
Cell Phones, Texting, and Car Accident Information for All Drivers:
-Talking on a cell phone causes nearly 25% of car accidents.
-One-fifth of experienced adult drivers in the United States send text messages while driving.
-In 2008 almost 6,000 people were killed and a half-million were injured in crashes related to driver distraction.
-At any given time during daylight hours in 2008, more than 800,000 vehicles were driven by someone using a hand-held cell phone.
-4 out of every 5 accidents (80%) are attributed to distracted drivers. In contrast, drunk drivers account for roughly 1 out of 3 (33%) of all accidents nationally.
-Texting while driving is about 6 times more likely to result in an accident than driving while intoxicated.
-People who text while driving are 23% more likely to be in a car accident.
-A study of dangerous driver behavior released in January 2007 by Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. found that of 1,200 surveyed drivers, 73% talk on cell phones while driving. The same 2007 survey found that 19% of motorists say they text message while driving.
-In 2005, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found that 10% of drivers are on handheld or hands free cell phones at any given hour of the day.
-A study conducted by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety Motorists found that motorists who use cell phones while driving are four times more likely to get into crashes serious enough to injure themselves.
-In 2002, the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis calculated that 2,600 people die each year as a result of using cellphones while driving. They estimated that another 330,000 are injured.
According to the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, drivers talking on cell phones are 18% slower to react to brake lights. They also take 17% longer to regain the speed they lost when they braked
-Of cell phone users that were surveyed, 85% said they use their phones occasionally when driving, 30% use their phones while driving on the highway, and 27% use them during half or more of the trips they take.
-84% of cell phone users stated that they believe using a cell phone while driving increases the risk of being in an accident.
-The majority of Americans believe that talking on the phone and texting are two of the most dangerous behaviors that occur behind the wheel. Still, as many as 81% of drivers admit to making phone calls while driving.
-The number of crashes and near-crashes linked to dialing is nearly identical to the number associated with talking or listening. Dialing is more dangerous but occurs less often than talking or listening.
-Studies have found that texting while driving causes a 400% increase in time spent with eyes off the road.
You can also read the teen stats here:
http://www.edgarsnyder.com/car-accident/cell/statistics.html
i think i can answer your first question as to whether lower speeds would mean less fatalities. If we assume that lower speeds do not impact the the number of people being hit by cars (the slower speeds do give people more time to jump out of the way but also act to attract more risk takers), then all we need do is look at the law which states that force is equal to mass times velocity and we will realize that being hit with less force should improve our odds of surviving.
And while i cannot answer with as much certainty to your next question, i do think there is a corelation between drivers using hand held cell phones and folks being run over. i would think that the amount of attention a person has is a finite quantity and if some of that is being diverted away from the road, well, you are just going to be reading more stories about more pedestrians being struck by cars.
i would really like to see the police take the no cell phone use while driving law seriously. The police were generally slow to take the drunk driving laws seriously at first, but once they did and fewer drivers were willing to chance driving while intoxicated, the number of fatalities from alcohol related accidents began to decline. i strongly suspect that we would notice a similar shift with respect to this matter.