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Fun map shows where you’ll probably be hit by a car

Looks pretty safe out there to us!
Looks pretty safe out there to us!

When will you be hit by a car in New York City? If you never stop to ponder this question, well good for you. The rest of us normal people at least think of it sometimes, especially when we watch people drive. Some of us because we’ve experienced close calls with almost being run over, and some of us who’ve had more than a close call. There’s a lot of data on the subject at this point, and thankfully, someone put it all on a map and some charts to demonstrate where people are being hit by cars and even the demographic most likely to be run over. Are you a male Baby Boomer wandering around Brooklyn? You might wanna strap some armor on.

The map, Walk Safer NYC, does its part in helping people know where to take extra caution by plotting out where people have been hit by cars in the city for the last four years. Where are you safe? Well, not really anywhere, as you can see that there’s plenty of hotspots where cars hit people:

More interesting than the map of where people got hit by cars is that the Walking Safer map also breaks down how many pedestrians have been run over this year compared to last, and breaks down the numbers by time of day, demographic and where the most car/pedestrian collisions occur. For instance, there’s been a slight reduction in the number of pedestrians hit in Brooklyn this year, with 761 collisions between January and March of last year compared to 703 last year. Hey, that’s good! On the other hand, failure to yield the right of way and driver inattention combined to be the reason for a crash in 57% of all crashes last year. That’s bad! Pay attention, drivers, you’re behind the wheel of a two-ton death machine. Unsurprisingly, the data also says that the majority of pedestrians are hit during rush hour, or later in the evening when people are rushing off to parties.

As for where the most collisions happened, your top three intersections for pedestrian/car collisions in 2014 were Eastern parkway and Utica Avenue (9 collisions), Flatbush Avenue and Avenue H (7 collisions) and Nostrand Avenue and Clarkson Avenue (6 collisions). Also of note is that from 2010 to 2013, male Baby Boomers were the biggest demographic in Brooklyn to get hit by cars, with 56 total instances of cars hitting them, so be careful out there if you’re old enough to remember Woodstock.

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