"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/)
"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/)
"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/)
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!