Dead-End Safety
NPR.ORG has an interesting segment entitled “The Cul-de-Sac Myth”.
Cul-de-sacs have fallen out of favor with urban planners in recent years, for several reasons. Not least among them: the now-proven-wrong feel-good safe-for-your-kids image cul-de-sacs have had since the mid-50s here in the United States.
These days, that image seems grimly ironic to people who actually look at safety statistics. William Lucy, for example, professor of environmental studies at the University of Virginia. He points out that cul-de-sac communities turn out to have some of the highest rates of traffic accidents involving young children.
“The actual research about injuries and deaths to small children under five is that the main cause of death is being backed over, not being driven over forward,” Lucy says. “And it would be expected that the main people doing the backing over would in fact be family members, usually the parents.”
We heard this while driving through the Rainier Valley on the way to work recently, and laughed at the image of a safety-first suburban Mom in her big protective SUV, backing out of her safe home in a cul-de-sac and running over her own kid.
I know, it’s wrong, but we laughed. It was a nice break from talking about the war in Iraq, a recurring morning-commute topic.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 25th, 2006 at 9:38 pm. You can subscribe to comments on this post through its RSS feed.
on July 26, 2006 at 12:47 pm Tom wrote:
Very interesting - I always kind of thought it was true. I wonder, though, if the stats are skewed by the environment. For example, a lot more people with young children strive to live on dead-end streets or cul-de-sacs. I doubt they adjusted for that, you know?
A study came out years ago stating that African-Americans have a higher rate of lung cancer than other demographic groups. If you give it a moment’s thought, you realize that low-income groups tend to smoke more (and are aggressively and somewhat immorally advertised to by tobacco companies), and that the black community, on the whole throughout America, has been historically lower-income than other groups. It goes back farther to cultural disenfranchisement and all that, but I think it’s sufficient to assume here that we’ve all had that argument with a white racist jerk at the bar at some time or other.
AAAANNNYYYhow, this is why I almost always distrust stats. It’s not that statisticians are lying to us - I think they’re doing a great job considering how fluid these things they are mandated to measure can be. It’s more that very often there’s no clear point at which to stop adjusting for environmental variables. I would imagine that the number of children living in cul-de-sacs is considerably higher overall than the number of kids on other blocks.
Add to that the fact that more cul-de-sacs are in the suburbs, which we all know are full of people with big-ass SUVs they clearly don’t know how to drive (particularly while on the damn phone), and the stats are meaningless. But perhaps I’m editorializing a bit on my last point, there …
on July 26, 2006 at 2:53 pm Doug wrote:
I agree, there’s a good chance the stats are meaningless. I just liked the image of a safety-conscious person believing that they’re “doing the right thing” and thereby putting everyone in even more danger than before. Future generations will know this as the Iraq Syndrome.
on July 26, 2006 at 2:55 pm Tom wrote:
Totally! And let’s hope it’s not called the “Iraq Syndrome,” but is called the “Bush Syndrome” instead. I’d hate to have Iraq have to carry the weight of a moniker like that when it should carry the name of the Chowderhead in Chief.
on July 26, 2006 at 3:28 pm Doug wrote:
Good point. As it says in a cartoon Megan used to have on the fridge, “God damn that bastard Bush.”
Hey, that’s one thing that’s cool about working at Microsoft: although I know a few of the fat cats at the top are Bush supporters, at my level you can count on almost everyone you come in contact with hating the man. Sure makes it easier to talk politics with co-workers (compared to, oh, say, working at an auto auction).