Hit-and-Run Crashes the Norm in Chicago Pedestrian Deaths

Four weeks later and three blocks away from a doubly-deadly car crash in March, 50-year old Cynthia Hoff was killed while crossing 4200 South block of Western Boulevard (the street on the east side; the west side street is Western Avenue). This makes the sixth pedestrian death and fifth hit-and-run pedestrian death in 2012, bringing our rate to 83%. While researching for this article, I came across a hit-and-run pedestrian death that I didn’t previously report, that of Aaliyah Kalimullahdunn at 80th Street and Ashland Avenue.

Whenever I talk about traffic safety, I, without pause or reservation, bring up the fatality statistics the Netherlands “enjoys”. And it is enjoyment that so few people will have to die on their roads in a year compared to the United States, Illinois, and Chicago, even after adjusting for population and time or distance spent on the road. I can imagine how outraged the people of the Netherlands would be if they saw that their traffic safety rate was degrading. See how citizens reacted to a particularly bad crash (that had zero fatalities). The country is such a model for safe transportation that Alderman Solis and two CDOT workers were sent there.

We should be outraged that a single person dies. We can change our culture (see what transportation commissioner Gabe Klein has to say about our culture), and we can change our roads.