LONG ISLAND, NY- According to Runningmagazine.ca, a student from Stony Brook University was hit by a van on Tuesday, December 4, 2018. The victim, Noah Farrelly, 18, was running at the time of the fatal accident. Farrelly ran on the university’s cross country team. The student-athlete was a freshman who had graduated from Binghamton High […]
LONG ISLAND, NY- According to Runningmagazine.ca, a student from Stony Brook University was hit by a van on Tuesday, December 4, 2018. The victim, Noah Farrelly, 18, was running at the time of the fatal accident.
Farrelly ran on the university’s cross country team. The student-athlete was a freshman who had graduated from Binghamton High School last spring. Farrelly was a basketball fan and a lacrosse player as well.
Farrelly was attempting to cross the street on campus while jogging when the crash occurred. He was originally reported in critical condition, but updated reports indicate that the teen was taken off of life support.
In 2017, almost 6,000 pedestrians were fatally struck by vehicles in the United States. The number of people killed was similar to the number from 2016, which was a 25-year high. While the number of pedestrian deaths has increased annually for a number of years, it seems to be holding steady, although steady at a very high number of deaths. Efforts to reduce pedestrian fatalities include lowering speed limits, designing better streets and intersections, and technology that allows vehicles to identify pedestrians and cyclists and apply the brakes before an accident.
Speed limits play a major role in pedestrian crashes because the chance of surviving can decrease drastically with just an increase of just a few miles per hour. In some places, pedestrian safety advocates argue that heavy pedestrian areas should have speed limits no higher than 20 miles per hour in order to decrease the chances of pedestrians being killed.
New York City’s ability to cut down on the number of pedestrian deaths within the city indicates that improvements can be made.
