Killed by a Traffic Engineer: Shattering the Delusion that Science Underlies Our Transportation System

by Wes Marshall

The Netherlands made it legal for pedestrians to jaywalk in 1997. Back then, more than 130 pedestrians lost their lives each year. The population of the Netherlands has since grown by more than 10 percent, but now the Netherlands sees fewer than 50 pedestrian deaths annually.1 Transportation infrastructure in the United States isn’t quite the same as what you might find in the Netherlands. But another interesting difference is how the Netherlands handles assigning blame in a crash, as John Pucher and Lewis Dijkstra explain in their 2000 Transportation Quarterly paper: “Even in cases where an accident results from illegal moves by pedestrians and cyclists, the motorist is almost always found to be at least partly at fault.” And when the pedestrian involved in the crash is a kid or an older person, “the motorist is usually found to be entirely at fault.”2 Pucher and Dijkstra go on to say that “in almost every case, the police and the courts find that motorists should anticipate unsafe and illegal walking and cycling. Having the right of way by law does not excuse motorists from hitting pedestrians and cyclists.”3 In terms of liability, how do insurance companies in the Netherlands handle crashes between cars and pedestrians or bicyclists? “The insurance company for the motorized vehicle automatically pays the damages, regardless of guilt. The only exceptions are cases where the pedestrian or cyclist can be proved to have deliberately caused the accident.”4