Hispanics suffer highest pedestrian death rate

Hispanic pedestrians are run down by cars in greater numbers than members of any other ethnic group, according to new data that is prompting the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments to press municipal transportation departments to address the problem.

A resolution, scheduled for a vote Wednesday, calls for a public education campaign “with increased targeting of high-risk populations.”

In Northern Virginia, Hispanics stand an eight in 100,000 chance of getting struck by a car or truck, compared with three per 100,000 for Caucasians, two per 100,000 for Asian Americans and six per 100,000 for the black community, according to a recent report from COG, a regional planning agency.

Maryland and the District report similar accident rates by ethnic group.

“Here, people walk to everywhere,” Mario Quiroz, a spokesman for the Silver Spring-based immigrant-advocacy group Casa de Maryland, said about his predominantly Hispanic neighborhood. “You go walking to shopping, your laundry, your bank.”

Roadway dangers are greatest for new immigrants, he said.

“Some immigrants are not used to using crosswalks,” Mr. Quiroz said. “The shortest distance between two points is a straight line.”

Hispanics also suffer a higher-than-average death and injury rate from pedestrian accidents nationally, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Income appears to be a factor for some of them.

“Quite often, people do not own a car, and they live in places that do not have sidewalk facilities or very poor ones,” said Anne P. Canby, president of the Surface Transportation Policy Partnership, an advocacy group for multimodal transportation planning. “To get to transit, they have to walk.”

Nationwide, 4,784 pedestrians from ethnic groups were killed in traffic accidents in 2006, the last year for which the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics has figures.

More than 80 pedestrians are killed and 2,300 injured every year in the Washington area, according to COG. Pedestrians make up one-fifth of the region’s traffic fatalities.

COG’s resolution also asks local governments to enforce pedestrian-safety laws more stringently and to design traffic facilities to make the region more “walkable.”

A lack of coordination among regional governments has limited the success of pedestrian-safety planning until now, COG officials said.

The resolution represents a goal, not a new law for the region’s governments, COG officials said. “This is essentially moral persuasion,” said Mike Farrell, the council’s transportation planner.

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