Honoring Lives Lost in Altadena

The number of pedestrians killed by cars in California is alarmingly high. In fact, the number of pedestrian deaths in California is higher than the national average according to the California Office of Traffic Safety. 

By Jennifer Hall Lee

Two Altadenans died recently after being struck by vehicles while they were walking. At the Altadena Town Council meeting on December 20, Councilmember and Recording Secretary Dorothy Wong took the time to honor their lives. 

Wong dedicated the meeting to the “loss of two of our community members in traffic collisions, Tarnie Fulloon Israelsson and Kent Pulver.”

It’s December and the end of Daylight Savings traditionally brings a spike in pedestrian deaths by automobile, but that’s not the only reason.

The 2021 report Pedestrian Traffic Fatalities by State from the Governors Highways Safety Association, examined trends examined in pedestrian fatalities.  Those trends include: “increased reckless driving behaviors, the need for safer road crossings and efforts to make pedestrians more visible through better lighting and other strategies, and the continued uptick in sales of sport utility vehicles (SUVs), which cause more severe pedestrian impacts in the event of a collision.”

A New York Times article titled, The Exceptionally American Problem of Rising Roadway Deaths suggests that here in the United States we have accepted, for the most part, the dominance of car culture over pedestrian culture. 

We have a modern concept of placing products over people in an economic hierarchy. Our car culture has grown from an idea about getting people to their destinations, but the impact on pedestrians has not been treated with the same focus. In other words, how do people who are walking or biking interact with automobiles? A human being (on or off a bike) and an automobile are unequal competitors for space.

The death of a community member is a moment to pause and honor their lives.  Maybe it is also time for another thought: how can we fully prioritize the rights of people to simply walk safely on our sidewalks and cross our streets? 

For health reasons we are walking and biking more, but as Councilmember Wong said to me, “lighting has not been designed for pedestrian safety.” She added that “our roads are not designed to handle what we are today.”

For more information about pedestrian safety, see this website.

Jennifer Hall Lee is speaking for herself.