Despite Two Pedestrian Deaths in 12 Hours, County Officials Say Pedestrian and Vehicle Collisions Are Decreasing

Eighteen-year-old Rockville resident became 10th pedestrian killed in Montgomery County this year when she was struck by a car Thursday morning in Silver Spring

October 23, 2015 9:31 a.m.

Twelve hours apart, a 95-year-old woman on her way to a bowling league in Bethesda and an 18-year-old woman in Silver Spring died after being struck by cars traveling on major thoroughfares.

The deaths were the ninth and 10th pedestrian fatalities in Montgomery County this year and a startling reminder of the continuing issues the county and other jurisdictions face when it comes to pedestrian safety.

Still, county officials say the two deaths, the first occurring just before 6 p.m. Wednesday on River Road in Bethesda and the second just before 6 a.m. Thursday on Route 29 in Silver Spring, don’t mean county roads are becoming more dangerous for pedestrians.

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Officials on Thursday said a county initiative to curb collisions between vehicles and pedestrians that began in 2008 has resulted in a 16 percent drop in total collisions from 2013 to 2014 and an eight-year low occurring in 2014 when it comes to the number of severe collisions that kill or incapacitate pedestrians.

The 74 severe collisions in 2014 were the lowest number in the county since 2007. Nine pedestrians were killed on county roads last year.

“Because what happens is a result of a million different random decisions that people make whether they’re in a car or whether they’re walking, it’s something you just have to constantly stay on,” said Patrick Lacefield, a spokesperson for County Executive Ike Leggett. “You can put a lot of effort into it, but one time you may have a near miss by a foot and the next time you won’t.”

Leggett and county transportation officials have touted declining pedestrian collision numbers as evidence that their strategy, backed by an average of $4 million to $5 million of funding a year, is working.

Lacefield said that it wasn’t until a few years ago that pedestrian safety initiatives underwent a shift toward focusing more on dangerous driver behavior than on dangerous pedestrian behavior, though the county still enforces both.

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In 2011 and 2012, officers issued a total of 1,621 citations to pedestrians for crosswalk violations. In those two years, officers issued just 65 citations to drivers for failing to yield at a crosswalk, failing to yield on turns and speeding through crosswalks.

In 2013, officers cited 651 drivers for crosswalk violations and 630 pedestrians for violations, meaning police went from citing pedestrians 96 percent of the time to less than 50 percent.

County police Capt. David Falcinelli, commander of the Bethesda-based 2nd District, said officers are conducting pedestrian crosswalk stings every month in each of the county’s six police districts.

The stings consist of officers in bright green or yellow shirts using crosswalks, often at intersections with no traffic signal, and stopping drivers who fail to yield.

“We certainly have turned that around in the last couple of years,” Lacefield said. “We’ve put a lot more emphasis on the drivers, but sometimes in the high incident areas, different groups of people are to blame.”

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Lacefield said that in downtown Bethesda, for example, pedestrian and driver collisions tend more often to be the fault of the driver. In the Piney Branch area of Silver Spring, pedestrian and driver collisions tend more often to be the fault of pedestrians crossing mid-block, Lacefield said.

Police said that Marge Wydro, the elderly woman killed Wednesday night in Bethesda, was “in the area” of a marked crosswalk on southbound River Road at Springfield Drive. Her son said she was crossing to get to a duckpin bowling league at Kenwood Golf & Country Club, on the other side of River Road from the house she had lived in since 1963.

The driver, 30-year-old Kenneth Bravman of Washington, D.C., remained on the scene, visibly upset.

On Thursday, police said that 18-year-old Rockville resident Michelle Sena Hoyah was struck by a vehicle while Hoyah was trying to cross the southbound lanes of Route 29 just south of New Hampshire Avenue in the White Oak section of Silver Spring.

Hoyah was transported to Holy Cross Hospital, where she succumbed to her injuries. Police said the driver involved, 35-year-old Maxwell Larbi of White Oak, struck Hoyah “in the traffic lanes.”

The investigations into both incidents are ongoing and detectives haven’t announced whether they’ve determined who was at fault. In the past, investigations into fatal pedestrian, bicyclist or traffic accidents have lasted weeks or even months.

County officials said statistics on total pedestrian fatalities in 2015 aren’t yet available.

From 2005 to 2014, the county averaged 435 pedestrian collisions. There were 405 pedestrian collisions in 2014, down from 483 in 2013.

Lacefield said that pedestrian collisions in parking lots, a growing area of concern, declined by 14 percent in 2014 compared to figures for 2013.

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