This page contains an excerpt from GHSA's Policies and Priorities document outlining GHSA's policy on bicycles, pedestrians, micromobility and other personal conveyances.
Excerpted from GHSA Policies & Priorities
Bicyclists, pedestrians and other non-motorized and low speed travelers are frequently injured on streets and highways. Pedestrians in particular constitute a substantial percentage of injuries and deaths from traffic collisions in many areas. The progress made in reducing traffic trauma in other areas has not been reflected in pedestrian and bicycle injuries which have been declining at a much slower rate. GHSA strongly supports bicycle riding and walking as fundamental means of transportation, not as alternative modes. Roadways, structures and facilities should include bicycle and pedestrian elements in their basic design.
States should update crash reporting systems and practices to capture critical elements related to crashes involving bicycle riding and walking. GHSA urges states and communities to train law enforcement on traffic rules and roadway infrastructure designed for pedestrian and bicycle traffic, conduct education and enforcement campaigns to promote and enforce these laws, and increase awareness of key infrastructure. Generally, enforcement to protect non-motorized road users should focus on vehicle drivers. States should engage in data analysis to identify high-risk corridors and communities in order to allocate resources where most needed.
GHSA supports the use of helmets by all persons of all ages who ride bicycles and other unconventional vehicles and supports testing to assure all helmets meet mandatory federal safety requirements. GHSA encourages states to support the use of helmets, adopt helmet laws and continue to provide bicycle safety awareness programs. States are also encouraged to collect data on bicycle helmet usage to the greatest practicable extent.
GHSA supports implementation of bicycle safety education programs and enforcement of mandatory bicycle helmet laws. The problem of bicycle safety should be researched, continually monitored and evaluated to determine the effectiveness of countermeasures and to document the progress that has been made in reducing the size and scope of the problem. Special bicycle safety programs aimed at young children and teenagers should also be implemented at the state and community levels.
GHSA urges states and communities to leverage infrastructure countermeasures to separate bicycle riders from traffic or to designate travel areas and traffic signaling specifically for bicycles.
GHSA supports efforts to raise public awareness about the problem of pedestrian safety and encourages implementation of community-based pedestrian safety countermeasures.
GHSA urges states and communities to adopt evidence-based strategies to increase separation of pedestrians from motor vehicles, manage speed, make pedestrians more visible to drivers, and deploy engineering and enforcement measures to reduce speed on roadways with non-motored traffic.
Additionally, the Association urges state and local jurisdictions to implement special pedestrian safety emphasis programs for young children and older adults since these groups constitute the largest percentage of pedestrian fatalities and injuries.
GHSA also supports further research on pedestrian issues as well as monitoring and evaluating progress toward reducing pedestrian fatalities and injuries.
GHSA supports enforcement of traffic laws to protect pedestrians, in particular those laws protecting pedestrians crossing roadways at crosswalks.
GHSA urges the auto industry to make vehicles safer by exploring engineering changes to better protect pedestrians in collisions and by installing technologies to detect and automatically brake for pedestrians.
Many travelers are beginning to increasingly use micromobility devices for travel, either personally owned or as a service. This includes personal conveyance devices, which includes motorized devices like scooters, e-bikes, motorized wheelchairs, golf carts, mopeds, all-terrain vehicles, and self-balancing personal transporters. Travelers also sometimes share the road with human-powered scooters, inline skates, skateboards and motorized toy cars.
GHSA recommends that states and communities educate the public and train law enforcement on the safe and legal use of micromobility and how to share the road with micromobility devices. States should require that users of micromobility be trained in the safe use of their devices. States should also consider requiring protective helmets for micromobility users not protected by the vehicle. States and communities should consistently regulate motorized micromobility devices and establish rules regarding the use of such devices on sidewalks. Traffic rules for the use of e-bikes and e-scooters should be consistent with similar regulations regarding bicycles.
GHSA urges states and communities to collect more accurate data about micromobility crashes on police crash reports and use injury data to better identify the extent of micromobility crashes.
Low speed vehicles (LSV) are defined by NHTSA as those that are able to travel at 25 mph or less. Low speed vehicles are exempt from almost all federal safety standards applying to cars, and they are not required to meet any crashworthiness tests.
GHSA recommends that LSV’s meet additional federal vehicle conspicuity standards so that they are more visible to nighttime drivers. Further, GHSA urges states to review their regulations for low-speed vehicles to ensure that more vehicles are registered, licensed and limited to roadways where there would be few potential conflicts with higher speed vehicles.
