"Child Pedestrian Safety"
The American Academy of Pediatrics #AAP just released a revised policy statement on #Pedestrian #Safety for #children
From the recommendations:
"Legislative advocacy to address environmental and urban design factors that impact pedestrian safety. Pediatricians can work with local, state, or federal lawmakers to do the following..." (1/)
"a. Encourage support for #CompleteStreets policies and #VisionZero.
b. Support legislation to reduce speed limits in urban areas, including areawide #20mph zones, and to permit photo #SpeedLimit enforcement in critical areas, including school zones.
c. Develop legislation to encourage or require adoption of safety technology, such as pedestrian detection systems and automatic braking in new vehicles." #AAP (2/)
"b. Support, or introduce and promote, community-level #VisionZero interventions."
c. Support, or introduce and promote, #SafeRoutesToSchool interventions.
d. Promote safe and #ActiveTransport, including #walking, as an alternative to motorized conveyance, to reduce vehicular #traffic and increase demand for pedestrian amenities." #AAP (4/)
"e. Advocate for #pedestrian #infrastructure when communities consider how to repurpose urban space and #roadway lanes that are freed up by a reduced demand for parking as autonomous vehicles become more prevalent [me: hugely important fight & complicated policy issues here].
f. Lobby for areawide #20mph zones in residential or commercial districts to reduce #pedestrian injury risk and improve #walkability." #AAP (5/)
"g. Support research to further understand and test interventions for pedestrian education for children and their caregivers.
h. Support the development of more robust surveillance systems to collect exposure data for pediatric pedestrians and identify high-risk locations for pediatric pedestrian injury." #AAP (6/)
they also include 'anticipatory guidance,' which undermines their good stuff above a little IMO because it gets a little victim-blamey/shared-responsbility/blah-blah, so I'm not pasting it here.
Just focus on the first two sets of recommendations - on legislative adocacy and regular advocacy. Looks like a pretty solid list to me, and I'm excited to see this new wave of public health professionals enlisting in #TheWarOnCars!
"d. Advocate for the unique needs of #child #pedestrians as algorithms and technologies to control #Autonomous #vehicles are developed."
"Advocacy: As community experts in child and adolescent health, pediatricians can do the following, placing special priority on high-risk communities and minority populations:
a. Lobby for safer and healthier pedestrian environments through engineering and design approaches in the local community." #AAP (3/)