Another turkey from the Road Warrior

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Editor's note: The Road Warrior's Wednesday column on drunken driving and pedestrian safety contained many of the same flaws as earlier columns, according to a concerned reader, who sent the following e-mail to Staff Writer John Cichowski. Meanwhile, a rare Road Warrior correction appears today on A-2, where readers are told Cichowski misquoted the mayor of Pohatcong on yellow-light timing in a Nov. 9 column on red-light cameras.

Once again, the Road Warrior reports misleading, incomplete, or false information and then confuses or misleads readers by a misinterpreting the facts.

His Nov. 21 column is the 16th time I've notified The Record management & the Road Warrior about his mistaken reporting, starting with his 9/12 article, without any corrective or preventive actions to address these problems.

While providing a lot of good, relevant information and stories about pedestrian safety, the Road Warrior still needs to be more accurate and provide better analysis and advice.

A pattern of mistaken reporting and analysis about pedestrian safety has been exemplified by his reporting on the supposed benefits of updated NJ crosswalk laws in 2010. 

It is clear that NJ pedestrian deaths have not decreased, but increased since these mysterious and confusing crosswalk laws -- which the Road Warrior has continually championed -- became law almost 3 years ago.

A highlight of misleading, incomplete, and false info from his column is noted below.

 1. Misleading, Confusing, False Statement - "Staying alive while walking 4 or 5 mph may not sound like much."

CORRECT FACTS - Actually, staying alive while walking 4 mph or 5 mph actually does sound like much MALARKEY since multiple studies and traffic safety experts have concluded that regular pedestrians do NOT regularly walk as fast as 4 or 5 mph, unless they are brisk walking to exercise or possibly trying to finish a marathon.  Traffic safety experts rely on multiple studies that show walkers generally travel between 2 - 3.5 mph, with older people walking slower and the average being around 3 mph.

No credible traffic safety expert in NJ is re-engineering traffic or pedestrian crossing lights based on pedestrians walking anywhere near as fast as 4 or 5 mph.

Perhaps, someone confused reports showing pedestrian walking speeds of 4-5 km per hour and forgot to convert to mph.

2. Incomplete statement - "New Jersey doesn't lead the nation in pedestrian deaths, a distinction that belongs to Florida when measured by deaths per 100,000. But the percentage of walking fatalities compared to all road deaths so far this year – 26.6 percent – is double the national average."

MORE COMPLETE FACTS - Some significant facts of life, which have absolutely nothing to do with re-engineering NJ roads and which the Road Warrior seemingly forgets, that lead to the higher percentage are noted below. (As noted by the Road Warrior, NJ officials and citizens can still work to reduce the rising number of pedestrian fatalities, which has shot up 16% this year.)

a)  NJ is the MOST densely populated state in the USA so a much higher percentage of people walk more than drive to where they need to go than a state like Wyoming.

b)  Public transportation, which is very good at reducing road deaths, is also used more frequently in NJ so it lowers the total number of road deaths, which makes NJ walking fatality percentages higher than other states.

c)  NJ has one of the lower rates of vehicle fatality rates for US states.  It means that the percentage of walking fatalities to all road deaths is higher than in other states.

NY State, which has one of the most densely populated metropolitan areas with more frequent use of public transportation than other US states, has a similar high percentage of walking fatalities to all road deaths that is almost double the national average.

3. Incomplete advice - The column listed four good strategies for safe walking.

FORGOTTEN ADVICE - The Road Warrior forgot some of the best advice that is heeded by those in the know, which is "Look Both Ways Before You Cross the Street," along with "Look behind and in front of you for cars that might be turning into where you are crossing."

When crossing the road, it is also always important to watch approaching cars and their driver since it appears that most do NOT fully obey the current confusing NJ laws for stopping or yielding for pedestrians or become distracted.

Cars will not be as forgiving as pedestrians in any damage that they can cause.

Here's hoping for change and better fact-checking, corrections, and reviewing (Googling?) by The Record's editors, columnists, & reporters for more reliable, accurate, and common-sense information prior to publication.