REPORT SHOWS SENIOR CITIZENS SUFFER HIGHER PEDESTRIAN FATALITY RATES FROM ACCIDENTS

From:New York attorney Gary E. Rosenberg (personal injury and accident attorney and lawyer; serving Brooklyn Queens Bronx; Brooklyn Injury Attorney)

The Tri-State Transportation Campaign is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to reducing car dependency in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. Leading environmental and planning organizations formed the Campaign in the early 1990s as a response to the mounting economic and environmental costs of automobile and truck dependence and promising reforms in federal transportation policy.

Older pedestrians are far more likely to be killed in an accident while walking than their younger neighbors, according to a new study by the Tri-State Transportation Campaign. This is especially true in downstate New York where accident fatality rates for older pedestrians are far higher than in the rest of the country.

Between 2006 and 2008, 290 pedestrians aged 60 years and older were killed in accidents on downstate New York roads. Though comprising just over 17 percent of the area's population, people aged 60 and older accounted for 42 percent of the total pedestrian fatalities frmo accidents during the three-year period. Those aged 75 years and older represent less than 6 percent of the downstate New York's population, but nearly 20 percent of accidental pedestrian deaths.

The Tri-State Transportation Campaign urged state leaders to reduce high fatality rates by passing a statewide complete streets policy that ensures roads are designed to accommodate all users, including walkers, cyclists, and people of all ages.

Nationwide, pedestrian collisions are the 5^th leading cause of accidental death for people aged 60 and older. And pedestrian fatality rates in accidents for older Americans are more than 50 percent higher than for those under 60 years.

But the disparities in downstate New York are even greater, with pedestrian accident fatality rates for people 60 years and older 3.7 times the rate for those younger than 60 years. People 75 years and older suffer an accident fatality rate that is nearly five times that of their younger neighbors.

The Tri-State Transportation Campaign's analysis found that Manhattan was the most dangerous place in downstate New York for older people to walk, likely a reflection of the higher walking rates there. But the issue is not just an urban one. Nassau County ranked 3^rd in the region in per capita terms, while the city's least dense borough, Staten Island, also ranked high on the list. The table below provides the full ranking of all downstate counties and boroughs. (Putnam and Rockland Counties were excluded because few accidental pedestrian fatalities were recorded in those counties.)

"This report should be a real wake-up call to our rapidly aging city," according to Paul Steely White, Executive Director of Transportation Alternatives. "No other indicator shows the dangers on our streets more starkly than the number of fatalities among senior citizens struck will walking."

The full report, as well as county fact sheets and maps showing the locations of pedestrian fatalities throughout the region can be found at www.tstc.org.