Roads and cars keep getting bigger, but people don't. So when they have to cross wide streets near big vehicles on foot, tragedies can happen.
And do, often to people who don't have much money (or cars) and who have darker skin. Do you know where the crosswalks are if you had to walk to your grocery store?
Angie Schmitt sees some disturbing patterns in vehicle vs pedestrian accidents, and she raises them in her book Right of Way: Race, Class, and the Silent Epidemic of Pedestrian Deaths in America. Angie Schmitt writes about sustainable transportation; here she writes about sustaining life.