Published Sunday, September 1, 2002, in the Fairfield Daily Republic

Vallejo police believe study is inaccurate

By Rowena Lugtu-Shaddox

VALLEJO -- A recent report ranked Vallejo as the most dangerous city
statewide for pedestrians. But police disagree and consider the study
flawed.

The report by the Surface Transportation Policy Project
<http://www.transact.org/ca/ped_safety_report_2002.htm>
places Vallejo at the top of the list for cities hazardous to
pedestrians in 2001, and ranks Fairfield as 26th. Solano County was
considered the most dangerous county, while Sacramento ranked second.

Police call into question the way STPP researchers devised its index.

Termed as the "danger index," it takes the rate of injuries and
fatalities as a proportion of overall pedestrian activity.

The index is based on two measures -- "pedestrian incident rate" and
"pedestrian exposure index." Both fall short of considering pertinent
information, according to Kirby D. Cooper, a statistician at the
Travis Air Force Base campus of Chapman University. The Vallejo Police
Department hired Cooper to analyze the report.

The incident rate is defined as the number of injuries and deaths
among pedestrians divided by the area's population and multiplied by
100,000, giving a standard measure of risk.

Incidence rates that are "different for different ages, genders and
races, which is the case with pedestrian incidents, need to be
adjusted for these factors so that valid comparisons between
populations with different mixes of age, race and gender can be made,"
Cooper wrote in his rebuttal. "This was not done in the report, so the
basic measure of risk for pedestrian incidents is flawed."

The exposure index is taken from the 2000 U.S. Census statistics and
intended to reflect the number of pedestrians by taking a percentage
of people older than 16 who walk to work, and multiplying it by 100.

This index is defective on several bases, Cooper said.

"It assumes that most pedestrian incidents occur while commuting to
and from work. In fact, most incidents occur to non-working
individuals at non-commute hours," Cooper said.

The over 16-year-old feature is suspect because children are a major
component of pedestrian incidents, Cooper said. The index is further
flawed because elderly, who are another major component of pedestrian
incidents, are also excluded, he added.

The study is simply inaccurate, said Vallejo police Lt. David Jackson,
spokesman for the Police Department.

"It tries to account for density. yet doesn't include 16 and under and
seniors," Jackson said.

The study also fails to note where pedestrian accidents occur, such as
on the freeways where the California Highway Patrol has jurisdiction.

The streets of Vallejo didn't have any pedestrian fatalities last
year, Jackson noted.

Three fatalities mentioned in the study occurred on Interstate 80, in
which police are not the primary responders and have no engineering
jurisdiction, Jackson said.

Police take pedestrian safety seriously, Jackson said. They just
concluded a program including bicycle safety education for children,
and street, sidewalk and crosswalk modifications.


Rowena Lugtu-Shaddox can be reached at rshaddox@...