Fiona’s Reviews > Right of Way: Race, Class, and the Silent Epidemic of Pedestrian Deaths in America > Status Update

"There's two kinds of freedom: 'freedom to' and 'freedom from.' There's freedom to drive fast. And there's freedom from death and injury on the roads."

"These kinds of deaths--if they take place in driveways, as many do-- are not included in official government traffic fatality reporting. Moreover, they are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to pedestrian deaths involving SUVs in the United States."

"KidsandCars.org and news station WTHR in Indianapolis conducted an experiment to see how many children could sit in front of a 2011 Chevy Tahoe before they would be visible to the driver. Seventeen children were completely obscured by the forward blind zone. More would have fit, but the organization was limited by how many children they could find whose parents agreed to participate."

"The implication is clear: the pedestrian was jaywalking and so is at fault in the crash. But reporters generally never dig deeper. [...] By repeating the 'not in the crosswalk' statement without studying the context, the reporter sidesteps the question of whether the road itself offers sufficient pedestrian infrastructure and misses an opportunity to tie Salazar's death to wider systemic failures."

"A good rule of thumb is that if a city or state developed after the invention of air conditioning, it is likely to be a dangerous place to walk."

"Pedestrian right-of-way laws are commonly misunderatood. But in most states, almost *every* intersection is considered an *unmarked* crosswalk, meaning that pedestrians have the legal right to cross there, even if there are no stripes on the road." Kind of curious about which states don't mention it or don't have this.