I think his example was a pedestrian crossing when they don't have a green and the driver has a green
Driver has the right of way, but also needs the self control to not hit a person walking just because the driver has the right of way
To the panelists credit, the two who answered mentioned the need to not victim blame and pointed towards a Safe System Approach rather than relying on personal responsibility alone
It wasn't direct pushback, but they did answer in ways that pointed away from victim blaming
Indeed
It sounded like he believed finding pedestrians at fault when they are hit by a driver would teach people a lesson that pedestrians must take more responsibility
Deterrence by victim blaming
An attendee from Houston asks about the most important infrastructure for pedestrian safety
Answers point to sidewalks and lighting
Basic sidewalks too often just don't exist or are so degraded that they are not useful
Answers focused on the Safe System Approach and creating a system of shared responsibility rather than blaming particular road users
Question from Dallas police officer - how do we make pedestrians and bicyclists understand they're responsible for their safety?
Examples include drivers not seeing people and that drivers shouldn't have to stop if a pedestrian crosses the street when the light is green for the driver
The survey also asks about a few behaviors of drivers
Drivers mostly say they do the appropriate thing when encountering a bicyclist or pedestrian
Takeaway from presenter is that data points to drivers being worse at yielding to pedestrians at mid block crossings, younger drivers are worse
Most common reason that Texans report for why they walk or bike is exercise
Transportation comes in third after socializing/fun
Transportation reported by a little over 25% of Texans reporting biking or walking at least once a week
In Texas, about a two-thirds of survey respondents report walking at least once per week
For biking, about one quarter of respondents report biking at least once a week
The question specifies that walking and biking is on a public road, not in a park
Final speaker is Neal Johnson from @tamu.bsky.social Texas A&M Transportation Institute
Texas DOT has funded a statewide survey about bicycling and walking behavior for the last five years www.walkbikesafetexas.org/educational-...
Another use of naturalistic bicycle data - validating and confirming the Level of Traffic Stress of bicycle routes
Goal after this pilot is to get to a place where they can scale naturalistic bicycle data collection and apply it to project planning, infrastructure improvements, and policy change
Most passing drivers provide at least two meters of distance (> 6 feet)
Most drivers also slowed down before passing
Good job drivers!
Observations showed that drivers provide an extra 1-2 inches of passing distance for every 10 mph of speed
That is not great
Striped bike lanes had lower passing distances than shared roads (but still greater than 3 feet)
Three foot law probably underestimates how much distance drivers provide
Focus of study has been developing and validating data acquisition
Application of data is preliminary at this point, but goals include looking at driver passing behavior, impact of bicycle infrastructure or roadway configuration on driver-bicycle interactions
Automating detection of bad passes
Naturalistic bicycle data collection requires configuring a bicycle for data collection
The BikeDAS (data acquisition system) that Dr. Hamm designed includes three cameras and at least four other sensors
First trialed on her bike and then on several volunteers with different bike types
Slides show the "Reinforcing Cycle of Bicycle Safety & Ridership"
Improve safety conditions -> improve safety perception -> increase bicycle ridership -> improve safety in numbers (repeat)
Next presenter is Dr. Laura Hamm from @vttinews.bsky.social @virginiatech.bsky.social
Her presentation is about naturalistic bicycling data
Naturalistic data is data collected by bicyclists, observing behavior and interactions from the bicyclist perspective in normal use
Trends in pedestrian deaths show recent change in striking vehicle type to be primarily light trucks
Expect that trend to continue as sales data also shows more light trucks being sold
Light trucks are more dangerous to people walking and their number keeps increasing
New emphasis and data in @ghsahq.bsky.social pedestrian reports that have been published for about 15 years is to include economic cost
I really like this inclusion and it'd be great to have more reporting on the costs of crashes
Costs of congestion tend to be more advertised but are lower
"Zero is the only acceptable number" - Adam Snider of @ghsahq.bsky.social describing progress in pedestrian deaths (down 11% compared to last year) but also still above pre-pandemic numbers
Big progress in California accounts for a lot of the change
The @ghsahq.bsky.social surveys its members, State Highway Safety Offices to be able to report pedestrian data before the federal government can
But, they know data could be far better and their wish list includes near misses, exposure, and pairing of hospital and crash records
First speaker is Adam Snider, Director of Communications for @ghsahq.bsky.social
His bio and his slides emphasize that he is bikes and walks with his family in Washington DC
Strong recognition and framing that every death is a person and important
My last breakout session of #Lifesavers2026 is "By the Numbers: Using Data to Support Pedestrian & Bicyclist Safety"
Respect to the conference organizers for providing coffee throughout this last day @michelemount.bsky.social
Question/suggestion from audience that under the current political environment people focus on economic costs of crashes and the impact of crashes of travel delay
Many of the worst traffic delays are due to crashes and reducing crashes leads to less congestion and delay
One cool thing that NYC is looking to do more of - extra wide bike lanes where you can ride next to a friend
Alicia says that protected bike lanes are not just about better, safer, biking
Protected bike lanes also improve pedestrian safety
Protected bike lanes also organize traffic in ways that benefit drivers by increasing predictability and reducing conflict (roadway reconfigurations do this too)
NYC has an in-house concrete team, which makes permanent improvements much easier than if they had to contract out that work (like my city)
Pedestrian islands and curb and sidewalk extension projects are among the most impactful for pedestrian safety
NYC does evaluation to prove it
The markings toolkit used by NYC includes painted curb extensions, painted sidewalk space, dedicated bus lanes, parking organization, protected bike lanes, and lane reorganization
NYC is also proud of developing turn calming and implementing operational changes through signals
Somewhat like Maryland, NYC also has a program to focus on shorter-term projects
The Street Improvement Projects target projects that can be done in 1-3 years
Capital projects hopefully happen within a decade
Big emphasis that SIP projects are done with in-house resources
Final speaker is Alicia Posner from @nycdot.bsky.social
New York City had a strong presence at this conference and really has done a lot of great work as part of their Vision Zero program
Vision Zero in NYC is very Data-Driven
NYC also uses Pedestrian Safety Action Plans, at the borough level