Police Accident Reports
Right Of Way received the accident reports on which this study is based in paper form, and we spent hundreds of hours inputting the information to a computer database. This was an illuminating experience in itself.

Each report, seen individually, is a little narrative, and a rather postmodern one at that, often featuring two levels of plainly "unreliable narrators ": the police officer making the report, and the driver who is, all too often, the sole source of the information in it.

The first-order unreliable narrator, the driver, is pretty much what might be expected, remarkable only for his flawed sense of probability: we are told, over and over, that a 70- or 80-year-old New Yorker has darted from concealment and hurled himself beneath a car.

More surprising, and disturbing, is how frequently the second-order narrator, the police officer, is an accomplice to these fabrications. A pedestrian is flung 60 feet after impact, but there is no reason to suspect excessive speed. A driver is making a left turn when a pedestrian walks into her vehicle. A cyclist runs a red light and then he strikes a car (man bites dog?), killing himself.

More routine, but no less depressing, are the reports where there is no such whopper, but every grudging, minimal entry bespeaks an indifferent functionary wearily going through the motions, utterly unconcerned to find out what really happened. Indeed, far too often, the paperwork isn "t even done conscientiously: a witness is mentioned, but no witness statement is present; citations are mentioned, but no violation codes are given.

Coding the reports was hard work; but above and beyond the strain on hand and eye, this effort took a certain toll on the spirit. Reading what happens to people is bad enough; realizing how little anyone cares compounds the pain.

four years, while medallion taxis killed just one, belying their reputation as cyclists " nemesis. For the 63 cyclist fatalities in which driver gender was reported, only two, or 3 percent, were women. This is a startling figure. Recall that the male share of street driving in New York City is estimated to be 75 percent. Even though the male driving share in Manhattan, where cycling is concentrated, may be higher, the fact that 97 percent of cyclist-killers were men strongly suggests that driver aggression (and not just cyclist impulsiveness) plays a significant role in killing bicycle-riders in New York City.

Ten motorists, or 15 percent, received moving violations in cyclist fatalities, not significantly different from the 16 percent rate in pedestrian fatalities. Summonses were issued for suspended or revoked license (3 cases), unlicensed (1), speeding (2), DWI (1), leaving the scene (1), violating right-of-way in crosswalk (i.e., turning, 1) and unsafe opening of a car door (1).

Youth and Elderly
New York City pedestrian and cyclist fatalities vary starkly with age. With only slight exceptions, the likelihood of being killed by an automobile rises with age, while the likelihood of killing with an automobile declines.

Both tendencies are shown in the next table. The only age "cohort " interrupting either pattern was 40-49; this group was slightly less likely to be killed than the next younger group, 30-39, and less likely to kill than the next older group, 50-59. Pedestrian + Cyclist Fatals, Annual Rate per 100,000 (1994-97)

Drunk Pedestrians? Hardly
In 1991, when there were 5,771 fatal pedestrian crashes [nationwide], 32.7 percent of pedestrian victims were intoxicated, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

So proclaimed the New York Times, in a 1993 page-one story ( "Traffic Deaths Say a Lot About the City, " May 9). Thus was minted the stereotype of drunken pedestrians stumbling into harm "s way, an image which remains an important component of the blame-the-victim attitude toward pedestrian deaths. In fact, the Times " statement is false.

The NHTSA datum is not an index of intoxication, since it pertains to pedestrians coded as "alcohol detected " for a blood alcohol content of just 0.01%. This is one-tenth the standard 0.10% level for legal intoxication. The same confusion was apparent in a Wall Street Journal report a year later that "nearly a third of people who died in bicycle crashes had alcohol in their blood. " ( "Alcohol Plays a Part in Many Bike Accidents, " April 15, 1994)

NYC DOT Traffic Fatalities reports from that period also showed drugs or alcohol in 30-35 percent of pedestrian fatalities, leading a DOT safety official to tell the Times, "We have a significant drunk walking problem. " Drink half a glass of wine before being run down by a car, and you die "alcohol detected " in the data but "drunk " in the eyes of the public. Indeed, a former DOT Commissioner sometimes laced his talks on traffic safety with oafish jokes about drunken pedestrians.

The glaring misreading of statistics evident in these reports and comments is compounded by human biology. Alcohol concentrations in blood samples after death often overstate crash-time concentrations, due to microbial alcohol production following death and postmortem diffusion of alcohol from organs or airways contaminated with gastric material. (See British Medical Journal 316, 10 January 1998, "Dead sober or dead drunk?, " by Derrick Pounder, Professor of Forensic Medicine, University of Dundee.)

Of course, the pedestrian "s state of mind should have no bearing in determining culpability when the driver speeds, mounts the sidewalk or otherwise violates the pedestrian "s right-of-way, as occurs in most pedestrian fatalities in New York City.

An estimated 362 New Yorkers age 65 and above were killed by automobile during 1994-97. This number is more than double15 the 168 people age 65 and above killed in homicides in New York City during the same four years.

The same age group of 65 and over accounted for 35 percent of people killed by automobile during the four years studied. People in this age group were 3.6 times more likely to be killed by automobile than were NYC dwellers under 65, and were over 7 times more likely to be victim than driver in a pedestrian or cyclist fatality.

Seventy-eight New Yorkers age 85 and older were killed by automobile during 1994-97. During the same period, 17 people 85 and older were murdered here. For these oldest New Yorkers, automobile victims outnumbered homicides by 4.6 to 1.

Younger drivers--ages 19-34--accounted for 48 percent of pedestrian and cyclist deaths in NYC during 1994-97. They were 4 times more likely to kill a person by automobile than were NYC dwellers 60 or over, and were 2.4 times more likely to be driver than victim in a fatal pedestrian or cyclist event.

Drivers age 19-26 were the most dangerous. They killed 255 pedestrians and cyclists during 1994-97, and were 2.7 times more likely to kill with an automobile than were all other city residents. Those age 19- 26 were also more than 3 times more likely to be driver than victim in a crash fatal to a pedestrian or cyclist.16

Children Killed by Automobile
No death is more wrenching than a child "s. While children (ages 0-9) were the least likely of any age group to be killed by automobile, each of the 39 such fatalities in our four years of records is a searing tragedy. Through our work, Right of Way members have become acquainted with the families of several young victims, and we have seen first-hand the shattering effects of their loss. The vision of streets and sidewalks made safe for children gives even greater urgency to our work.

Nineteen of the 39 fatalities, or nearly half, occurred in Brooklyn (see next table). A higher share of children than adults were killed by cars (28 fatalities) than trucks (6), with the latter comprising 3 vans, 2 dump trucks and 1 unknown truck during the 1994-97 period studied.

The full text of this report by Right of Way is available in pdf format.

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