As the Washington region sees an influx of foreign-born residents, local government leaders and police officers are struggling to curtail a wave of pedestrians being killed in traffic accidents.
Recent pedestrian safety studies from Inova Health Systems and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found that a disproportionate number of victims were of Hispanic or “other” ethnicity (meaning not black or white.) Many were immigrants and living in high-density, poorer areas.
“In many countries police don’t enforce pedestrian safety laws like they do here,” said Blanca Kling, Hispanic media liaison with Montgomery County police. “Nobody pays attention to crosswalks, it is normal for people to cross in the middleof the road, so when people come here they don’t know how important that is.”
Experts say another factor is that immigrants are less likely to own cars and more likely to walk.
Derwood resident Yadira Sanchez said her mother was typical of immigrants who walk or take public transit everywhere. The Colombia native, Ketty Emilce Alvarado, was killed in September 2006 when she was struck by a bakery truck. Police say the victim did nothing wrong and the driver is incarcerated.
“Everybody [in our family] is going through a deep depression,” Sanchez said. “We never got to say goodbye to our mother. We weren’t able to see her because her body was too badly damaged.”
Drivers involved in pedestrian fatalities say their lives are also forever altered.
“It’s like we saw a UFO,” said a driver in an accidental pedestrian fatality in Silver Spring last month. “My wife and I, our lives are never going to be the same either. … We had a green light and somebody ran out in traffic. A 19-year-old young man is dead … and we don’t know how to deal with it.”
Leaders of the rapidly diversifying Fairfax and Montgomery counties are trying to reach immigrant communities to prevent future tragedies.
In addition to working with foreign-language media and printing safety brochures in many languages, both counties have sent pedestrian safety educators to adult English for Speakers of Other Language classes.
Montgomery is planning a pedestrian walkway in heavily Hispanic Wheaton’s business area, and Fairfax is building a $5 million pedestrian bridge across Route 50 in the Seven Corners neighborhood that is popular with immigrants.
“Some people who are new to the area are from rural locations where cars don’t travel at these speeds,” Fairfax County Supervisor Penny Gross said.
“We need to do a lot more outreach to folks that you just can’t wander across a road wherever you want to. In many accidents there wasn’t driver error.”
2007 pedestrian fatalities
20 pedestrian fatalities
17 pedestrian fatalities
– Fairfax County, Va.:
16 pedestrian fatalities
– Prince William County, Va.:
5 pedestrian fatalities
– Data was not immediately available for Prince George’s County, Md., Arlington or Alexandria.
Police department representatives said they are not tracking pedestrian fatalities by race, but several acknowledged concern about immigrant community deaths.
