School Bus Strikes Pedestrian in Greenville County, South Carolina

GREENVILLE COUNTY, SC- Foxcarolina.com writes that a school bus struck a person in the road on Highway 414 in the early evening. There were no students on the bus at the time of the crash. The victim was apparently walking in the roadway, and the bus’s mirror struck the individual in the back of the head.*

Responders transported the victim to the hospital. The injuries are not considered life-threatening. The school is also conducting an investigation of the incident. 

Pedestrian crashes cause around 6,000 deaths a year in the United States. As the death toll has continued to climb, researchers have begun to look into the causes of these tragic accidents. In many cases, roads are designed to facilitate cars, but not to keep pedestrians and cyclists safe. There are plenty of roads that lack sidewalks where people traveling on foot are forced to share the same space as vehicles. Anytime when people are on the road in general, they are in a risky situation.

Even places with sidewalks often lack crosswalks, making crossing the road more challenging. The risks to foot traffic are even greater at night when drivers struggle to see pedestrians in the road until they too close to avoid them. Lower speed limits are one way that the roads could be made less dangerous for pedestrians. The risk of a fatal crash drops when the speed of the vehicle involved is lower. In pedestrian heavy areas, safety advocates often argue for a maximum speed limit of twenty miles per hour. At twenty miles per hour, most pedestrians will not suffer fatal injuries. With increasing speeds comes a rising risk of fatalities.  

Accident News is a safety and education initiative from Montlick & Associates, designed to help people better understand and thereby avoid common accident causes.  To learn more about our injury prevention programs, including iridesafe.com - click here. We hope you are never in an accident, but if you or family member are injured, call Montlick & Associates 24/7 for your free consultation at 1-800-LAW-NEED (1-800-529-6333) or use our live chat at Montlick.com.

Sources:https://www.foxcarolina.com/news/district-highway-patrol-investigating-after-greenville-co-school-bus-strikes/article_517efbd2-4229-11ea-859c-c7885afcf2e0.html and https://www.nhtsa.gov/road-safety/pedestrian-safety and https://usa.streetsblog.org/2016/05/31/3-graphs-that-explain-why-20-mph-should-be-the-limit-on-city-streets/