New Research Finds One Reason Pedestrian Fatalities Are on the Rise

Serious injuries to pedestrians listening to headphones have more than tripled in six years, new research from the University of Maryland School of Medicine and the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore has found. In many of the cases studied, the cars or trains were sounding horns that the pedestrians apparently could not hear. Nearly three-quarters of the cases resulted in fatalities, according to the university report. The number of these cases increased from 16 to 47 annually in the period studied. Many of the victims are teens.

Lead researcher in the study Dr. Richard Lichtenstein blames distraction and sensory deprivation for the accidents.

Researchers conducting the study reviewed 116 accident cases from 2004 to 2011 in which pedestrians were struck by trains or motor vehicles. In 70 percent of the cases, the victims died. In half of those cases, the pedestrians were killed by trains; 29 percent of the vehicles’ drivers reported that they sounded their horns before colliding with the pedestrians.

The study also found that pedestrians in densely populated areas were far more likely to be injured while wearing headphones, with 89 percent of the cases studied occurring in urban counties.

Pedestrian accident lawyer Jim Dodson has been helping families of those killed in pedestrian accidents in the Florida areas of Tampa, St. Petersburg and Clearwater, which leads the nation in pedestrian deaths, for more than 20 years. He addresses several topics related to pedestrian fatalities in a video library HERE.