THE MOST DANGEROUS ROADS IN AMERICA – FOR PEDESTRIANS

By Nate Lee

If the idea of walking along a highway at night seems suicidal to you, you’d be close to the truth if you lived near Highway 19 in Tampa, Florida. In a study of pedestrian fatalities in the whole country over five years, Dateline NBC designated the little thirty-mile stretch of ultra-flat blacktop the most dangerous in America to pedestrians. The sickening toll in the five years was 100 deaths, or more than three every two months. (Florida is also the home of the country’s most dangerous intersection. See other story.)

Recent immigrants and the poor are the groups most often “hit.” This is the case, particularly, in Dallas, Texas, in a stretch of Interstate 30 that goes right through town, separating motels and apartments from discount and food stores. Residents, who don’t have cars, try to make it across ten lanes of traffic. Over five years, 33 people were struck and killed there.

Phoenix, also home of two of the most dangerous intersections in America, claimed 27 pedestrian lives on Indian School Road, again with people trying to run across it. Though, it is true that you can get your kicks on Route 66, if you’re not a careful pedestrian you can also kick the bucket. Where the famed highway becomes Foothill Boulevard in San Bernardino County, California, 25 pedestrians have been mowed down.

Many millions of tax dollars are spent trying to keep pedestrians from playing Tag (and Russian Roulette) with speeding automobiles. And some of it is working. A section of road in Queens, New York, in 2001 was dubbed “Boulevard of Death” by the Daily News because it averaged a fatality every six weeks. After extensive improvements, the number was reduced to one per year.

Still, though, if you are ever cruising through these towns, at night especially, watch out for highway jaywalkers. They don’t make very good hood ornaments.