Pedestrian

[citation needed] In modern times, the term usually refers to someone walking on a road or pavement (US: sidewalk), but this was not the case historically.

The word pedestrian may have been used in middle French in the Recueil des Croniques et Anchiennes Istories de la Grant Bretaigne.

During the rest of the 19th century, many people tried to repeat this feat, including Ada Anderson who developed it further and walked a half-mile (800 m) each quarter-hour over the 1000 hours.

These feats are often tied to charitable fundraising and are undertaken, among others, by celebrities such as Sir Jimmy Savile and Ian Botham.

There are also footpaths not associated with a road; these include urban short cuts and also rural paths used mainly by ramblers, hikers, or hill-walkers.

The UK Highway Code advises that pedestrians should walk in the opposite direction to oncoming traffic on a road with no footpath.

Airports, museums, campuses, hospitals and shopping centres might have tools allowing for the computation of the shortest paths between two destinations.

[14] The use of cars for short journeys is officially discouraged in many parts of the world, and construction or separation of dedicated walking routes in city centres receives a high priority in many large cities in Western Europe, often in conjunction with public transport enhancements.

In Copenhagen, the world's longest pedestrian shopping area, Strøget, has been developed over the last 40 years, principally due to the work of Danish architect Jan Gehl, a principle of urban design known as copenhagenisation.

[13] The Traffic Injury Research Foundation describes pedestrians as vulnerable road users because they are not protected in the same way as occupants of motor vehicles.

In such a situation, an adult pedestrian is struck by a car front (for instance, the bumper touches either the leg or knee-joint area), accelerating the lower part of the body forward while "the upper body is rotated and accelerated relative to the car," at which point the pelvis and thorax are hit.

[18] Five states – Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia and Texas – are the site of 46% of all pedestrian deaths in the country.

[18] The advent of SUVs is considered a leading cause;[19] speculation of other factors includes population growth, driver distraction with mobile phones, poor street lighting, alcohol and drugs and speeding.

[18] Cities have had mixed results in addressing pedestrian safety with Vision zero plan: Los Angeles fails while NYC has had success.

[13] Pedestrian fatalities, in 2016, were[needs update] 2.6 per million population in the Netherlands, 4.3 in Sweden, 4.5 in Wales, 5.3 in New Zealand, 6.0 in Germany; 7.1 in the whole United Kingdom, 7.5 in Australia, 8.4 in France, 8.4 in Spain, 9.4 in Italy, 11.1 in Israel, 13 in Japan, 13.8 in Greece, 18.5 in the United States, 22.9 in Poland, and 36.3 in Romania.

This defect might more easily be observed on arterial roadways, intersections and fast-speed lanes without adequate attention to pedestrian facilities.

[13] For this reason, some European cities such as Freiburg (Germany) have lowered the speed limit to 30 km/h on 90% of its streets, to reduce risk for its 15 000 people.

)[13] A similar set of policies to discourage the use of cars and increase safety for pedestrians has been implemented by the Northern European capitals of Oslo and Helsinki.

General availability of public transportation encourages walking, as it will not, in most cases, take one directly to one's destination.