Advocacy Group Tells Connecticut: Make Roads Safer For Seniors

Older pedestrians are statistically less likely to be killed by
cars in Connecticut than in New York or New Jersey, but a tougher law on
careless driving would make them even safer, an advocacy group says. All three
states should redesign their most dangerous roads — particularly the relatively
high-speed and congested arterials such as Route 1 in Connecticut — to make
them safer for pedestrians, according to the Tri-State Transportation Campaign.
In a recently released analysis of pedestrian fatalities between 2009 and 2011,
Tri-State concluded that senior citizens stand a disproportionately high risk
while crossing or walking along high-speed and congested roads. "Almost 60
percent of older pedestrian deaths in these three states occurred on these
types of roads, even though arterials comprise only 15.3 percent of the lane
miles," the non-profit organization's report states. "These roads
often have travel speeds of 40 mph and two lanes in each direction,
prioritizing moving vehicles as quickly as possible," the report says.
"Many arterial roads also lack pedestrian and bicyclist safety
infrastructure such as sidewalks, crosswalks, and bike lanes, despite the fact
that these users are common on arterials, which are often lined with
businesses, offices, and supermarkets." Retrofitting such roadways with
curb ramps, better-marked crosswalks, pedestrian crossing islands, and
pedestrian countdown clocks would help reduce accidents involving pedestrians
of all ages, Tri-State reported.

Source/more: Hartford Courant