On a January evening, a 19-year-old woman was killed in a crash while attempting to cross a highway in Greeley on foot. Earlier this month, on a Sunday afternoon, a three-year-old boy died after being hit by a car on a neighborhood street in Erie.
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These are just two of the ten pedestrian deaths that have happened so far this year in Colorado, numbers that represent a troubling and growing problem: the number of deaths has doubled over the past ten years.
Sam Cole, the traffic safety manager at the Colorado Department of Transportation, says motorists are driving too fast and pedestrians are distracted.
“There's a false sense of security that they just assume a driver sees them,” said Cole. “You know, there's a lot of bad drivers out there. They're drunk, they're distracted, they're reckless. You are always going to be on the losing end of a crash with a vehicle.”
CDOT is rolling out a new safety campaign meant to highlight one risk factor: the majority of these deaths occur at night.
“Over 70% of pedestrian deaths happen after dark. A driver might not ever see someone before hitting them. How many can you see?,” said Dr. Molly Thiessen, a Denver-based emergency medicine physician, in one of the ads.
Dr. Thiessen then turns on a light, illuminating a large group of people at a bus stop.
“Drivers, be cautious and alert while driving,” she said “Pedestrians, you can be hard to see at night. Always use a crosswalk.”
The campaign, which is rolling out now, includes videos on YouTube and Meta, plus signage on buses, trains and billboards.
Last year, 127 pedestrians were hit and killed by cars in Colorado. Cole calls it a ‘hot button issue.’
“Just because it's really frustrating. And I think I share the frustration with a lot of our stakeholders in the community, that pedestrian fatalities are not coming down,” said Cole.
Slowing down is one of the best ways to keep people safe on the road. When a pedestrian is hit by a vehicle traveling at 23 mph, their chance of dying is 10%. That risk goes up to 90% when speeds increase to 60 mph, according to data from the U.S. Federal Highway Administration.
Infrastructure upgrades can make a big difference, too, including various road configurations, curb extensions, streetlights and sidewalks.
