Madison County Transit Bus Hits Child

WOOD RIVER, IL– April 30, 2018 (Fox 2 Now) According to a report from Fox 2 Now, A girl was walking to school when she was struck by a Madison County Transit Bus. The collision occurred close to where Hawthorne Avenue intersects Illinois Route #111. Emergency response personnel treated the girl at the accident scene, and she was airlifted to a hospital for further treatment of her injuries, which are serious. Police are currently investigating the accident.

Pedestrian accidents are on the rise, in Illinois and across the nation. Forty-six pedestrians died in Chicago alone in 2017, and two Chicago pedestrian fatalities were reported in January of 2018. The increase in pedestrian accidents is primarily due to distractions, both for drivers and for pedestrians. An analysis of pedestrian accident data reveals that while many pedestrian accidents are caused by distracted driving, some of them are caused by distracted walking. The average speed at which drivers are hitting pedestrians has also increased. This is concerning because the higher the speed of the vehicle, the more likely it is that the pedestrian will die. For example, a collision at ten miles per hours creates a fatality risk of ten percent, while a crash at forty miles per hour brings the chance of death up to eighty percent. If a pedestrian does not die after being hit by a vehicle, the speed at which the vehicle was moving when it hit them has a significant influence on the degree of severity of their injuries.

Drivers and pedestrians can both help reduce the number of pedestrian accidents and fatalities by paying closer attention to where they are driving and walking. Alcohol use is also a factor in many pedestrian accidents, and, like distraction, alcohol use by both drivers and pedestrians has been recognized as a factor in vehicle-pedestrian collisions.