Ride share pedestrian crashes
USA- Theladders.com writes that ride-hailing services have become a major force in the transportation industry. Uber and Lyft have normalized the practice of having a stranger give you a ride. As a result of this new trend, there have been some notable safety benefits, such as a lower number of drunk drivers. The convenience of these apps has made many would-be drunk drivers reconsider.
However, a recent study is linking these services to a rise in pedestrian and car crashes. While previous studies have looked into the crash rates in cities since ride-sharing began, the project is the first that analyzed the data collected from individual rides. Since 2010, the two companies logged a total of eleven billion trips in the United States.
While alcohol-related collisions dropped with the introduction of rideshare apps, the total number of crashes in cities remained about the same. The study suggests that the reason for this is that while drunk driving crashes drop, pick-up and drop-off incidents are becoming a problem.
When analyzing popular rideshare pick-up and drop-off spots, the researchers found an increase in the number of pedestrian crashes and vehicle collisions. The same is not seen in taxi pick-up locations, and there was no indication that cyclist collisions increase in these areas.
The authors stated that the study provides information for cities. In order to lower the number of such collisions, infrastructure similar to that used for taxi pick-up locations could decrease the number of crashes. Another possible fix is to make some especially busy roads off-limits as pick-up locations for rideshare drivers. With a few adjustments, cities could greatly lower the number of these incidents.
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