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© 2013 AFPOver 270,000 pedestrians killed each year: WHO
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© 2013 AFP
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smithinjapan
While Japan is HEAPS safer than its Asian neighbours, there is still a priority place on cars when it comes to streets. On the street I live I literally have to walk directly into traffic because the utility poles were put where a sidewalk should be. You should see it when two buses happen to meet! It creates a traffic jam you cannot even walk through. Old streets were widened for modern transportation, but not for pedestrian traffic. People park illegally and block the sidewalks, etc. I walk roughly 8 km every day and I'm every day baffled.
some14some
interesting, this data is covered by WHO (?) Yes, because count is not significant.
HonestDictator
Because in China, human life has no meaning. May not matter much to a country with over 1.bill people in its population but it does matter to countries with much less of a populace.
Vermillion Brent
So these organizations will get UN and other legislating bodies to pass crazy over zealous laws. The countries that really need these laws will just ignore them and more developed countries will have to spend money they can ill afford. All this will lead to extensive road construction work that will inconvenience drivers with detours and make it near impossible for those that walk when they have to go around construction.
ThonTaddeo
I agree wholeheartedly with these conclusions -- in recent decades, automobiles have been favoried in just about all urban planning, with the needs of pedestrians put at the bottom, when they're thought of at all.
A pedestrian can be killed by a car, but a driver of a car can hardly be killed by a pedestrian. Exhortations to "both people and cars" (人も車も) to share public space together, as you sometimes see on signs here in Japan,are being a bit unfair to those on foot: it's a one-sided affair in which automobile drivers do all the killing.
While driving a car is a privilege that some people (such as those with eyesight below 0.6) will never be able to enjoy, occupying public space as a pedestrian is a human right -- even someone who can't walk can still get around in a wheelchair. Automobile-centrism is de facto discrimination against non-drivers. Want to make walking safe? Start by favoring pedestrians (which means favoring all human beings), and by putting the needs of automobiles a distant second.