A review of road traffic crashes involving a pedestrian between 2013-2017

Here at Walking SA we’ve produced a one-page factsheet on crashes involving pedestrians in metropolitan Adelaide (Transport professionals prefer the term “crashes” to “accidents”, arguing that to call something an “accident” suggests that there’s nothing we could have done to avoid it.)

The factsheet uses data from the last five years to show where crashes involving pedestrians have occurred, both on a map and categorised by local council and the speed limit of the road.

The map also shows where the speed limit is 40km/h or less, and where slower speed limits are planned.

Two things stand out:

• The City of Adelaide council is surrounded by neighbours that have at least some 40km/h zones (only the City of Burnside and City of West Torrens don’t.) All of the City of Unley’s residential streets are zone 40km/h. The City of Adelaide council by contrast sticks to 50 and 60km/h speed limits, with very limited exceptions: Victoria Square plaza, the western end of Hindley Street and the designated Shared Use Zones.
• The City of Adelaide council has by far the highest number of pedestrian crashes of any council. In fact almost one in five pedestrians crashes for the whole State occur in the City of Adelaide council area.

The factsheet also includes a well-known graph from the State government’s Road Safety strategy that points out that your chances of surviving being hit by a car double if the speed of the vehicle is reduced from 50km/h to 40km/h.

If after looking at the fact sheet you would like further information, we have produced an interactive map for you to explore the data.

Walking SA thanks geo-spatial analyst Greg Vaughan for help in producing this factsheet.  We hope that it can be used to encourage safer speeds for pedestrians.