"Pedestrian safety laws draw council attention".
A couple weeks ago one of the construction workers in downtown Houston was run over and be killed by a Metropolitan Authority Transit trolley. And on Monday, another courier riding a bicycle was hit by a Metro bus. These stories are found in the article "Pedestrian safety laws draw council attention" in Metropolitan section of Houston Chronicle on Tuesday, June 25, 2002. This incident not only draw attention to City Council but also to all readers at a whole. In this limited 3 to 5 minutes, I will speak about all the possible causes of these accidents and I also propose some safety solution to protect our pedestrian .
In response to recent accidents involving downtown , City Council Carroll Robinson has proposed drafting and passing a new city ordinance to protect downtown pedestrians between all of the constructions. This , of course , start with an investigation of all possible causes that made our streets unsafe. Hundred of millions of dollars are spent every year to make America's roads safer, yet this investment is failing to ensure the safety of all of us who engage in the most basic form of transportation-walking. Statistic's finding indicate that form 1986 to 1995, approximately 6,000 pedestrian were killed by automobile each year, and more than 110,000 were injured. These death and injures are the consequences of a transportation system gone badly wrong- a system focused on making the streets safe for cars instead of making communities safe for people. Traffic safety features are designed primarily to allow drivers to move at higher speeds and remove all the obstacles such as pedestrian-a flow interruption. In deed, people are 1.6 times more likely to get killed by a car than they are to be shot and killed by a stranger with a gun. Second cause is high safety money is not being used to protect pedestrian. There is only one out of 99 percent of federal highway safety funds are spend on pedestrian safety.
