2022 has been deadly for pedestrians
In a year when pedestrian fatalities spiked, let’s remember the victims.
In 2022, 23 pedestrians were killed by drivers in Fairfax County, a big jump from the 13 pedestrian deaths in 2021. Nine of this year’s fatalities occurred in the Annandale/Mason District area, where heavy traffic, speeding, and insufficient crosswalks and sidewalks created deadly conditions.
Eileen Garnett, 82, a longtime advocate for revitalizing Annandale, was hospitalized with serious injuries after being struck by a car on May 20 at 11 a.m. in a parking lot at 7263 Maple Place in Annandale. She died on May 25.
Garnett had been walking around central Annandale with other members of the Annandale Central Business District Planning Committee to point out needed infrastructure improvements to county and Virginia Department of Transportation officials.
“She has worked for the betterment and beautification of Annandale for well over 40 years,” recalled longtime friend Fran Tunick. “Everybody loves her. It’s such a horrible thing to happen to someone as wonderful as her.”
Another pedestrian, Laura Baker, of the Fairfax County Planning and Development Department, was seriously injured and is still recovering.
The driver, Joana Konadu, 41, of Annandale, was charged with reckless driving. At the time of the crash, she was driving a 2008 Nissan Sentra. She was attempting to pick up food she had dropped when she lost control of the car and crashed into the pedestrians.
On May 22, Daniela Bonilla Betancourt, a 10th-grader at Annandale High School, was fatally struck on Little River Turnpike in Lincolnia.
She had just finished working the late shift at Taco Bamba and was in a crosswalk at Oasis Drive heading to a bus stop when she was hit by a westbound 2007 Honda CRV.
Daniela was taken to a hospital where she died from her injuries a couple of weeks later.
A family member who launched a GoFundMe page wrote, “We will never forget Daniela as a happy and sweet soul.”
The driver, Abraham Lincoln Samuel, 21, of Springfield, did not stop to help but turned himself in to police as detectives were investigating the crash. He was charged with felony hit and run.
Albert Sweat, 62, was killed in a crash involving three vehicles while walking through a parking lot in the 6200 block of Arlington Boulevard in Seven Corners on Aug. 18.
Sweat, a resident of Silver Spring, Md., worked for the District of Columbia Housing Authority as a construction foreman and recently started his own carpentry business.
“Albert was a good man,” his sister Renee Jackson told WUSA9. “He was smart, loving, kind, and generous.” He loved music and could play any instrument. Jackson said he had been in Arlington checking on a job that day. She thinks he was probably dropping by the Guitar Center, his favorite store, when he was struck.
Yansi Martinez Gonzalez, 26, of Falls Church, was charged Aug. 30 with reckless driving and driving without a license.
Martinez Gonzelez had been driving a 2012 Honda Civic northbound on Wilson Boulevard, when she made an improper lane change and crashed into a Volkswagen Jetta, forcing it into a parking lot where it struck Sweat, then crashed into an SUV.
Dalchoon Park, 74, of Annandale, was killed by a hit-and-run driver Oct. 2, shortly before 8 p.m., in the 4200 block of Annandale Road in Annandale.
The FCPD Crash Reconstruction Unit determined she was crossing Annandale Road outside of a crosswalk when she was struck by a small white SUV at low speed in the northbound travel lane. The driver did not stop. Police have so far been unable to track down the driver.
On Oct. 27, Elise Ballard, 40, was struck and killed by a hit-and-run driver on Leesburg Pike in Bailey’s Crossroads.
Yaraliz Rivera Rosado of Alexandria, the driver of a 2017 Infiniti that struck Ballard, turned herself in on Dec. 2. She was charged with felony hit and run.
Lesly Diaz-Bonilla, a 17-year-old student at Justice High School, was walking to school when she was struck and killed on Columbia Pike at Tyler Street on Nov. 16.
A resident of the Barcroft View Apartments, she had just dropped off a younger sibling at a nearby bus stop when she was struck by a westbound 2014 Toyota Camry in a crosswalk shortly before 9 a.m. Lesly was taken to a hospital where she was pronounced deceased.
Police have not announced whether the driver has been captured or charged.
Her father, Fermin Diaz Argueta, set up a GoFundMe page, where he described Lesly as “a beautiful angel” who dreamed of being successful in school and becoming a nurse.
Nearby residents had complained for years about the Tyler Street intersection, where there are no lights, drivers rarely stop for pedestrians, and there are frequent accidents.
Following the crash, the Project-Based Initiative for Bailey’s Crossroads and Culmore urged residents to sign a petition calling for Fairfax County and Virginia transportation officials to improve pedestrian safety at that intersection, including a traffic light and reducing the speed from 35 to 25 mph.
Ly Tran, age 70, of Springfield was struck on Braddock Road on Nov. 15. Her injuries were not considered life-threatening at the time but she died on Dec. 4.
Tran was crossing Braddock Road in a crosswalk at Kings Park Drive when she was struck by a 2012 Toyota Rav4. The driver, Willy Vaca Cardozo, 33, of Fairfax, made a right turn from Kings Park Drive onto eastbound Braddock Road when he struck Tran.
Cardozo was charged the day of the crash with failing to yield to pedestrians within the right of way. According to the police, speed and alcohol were not factors in the crash.
Kamrul Hassan, 66, of Falls Church was struck on Arlington Boulevard at Allen Street in Falls Church shortly after 7:30 p.m. on Dec. 4. He was taken to the hospital where he was pronounced deceased.
Hassan was attempting to cross the road from the north to the south side, when he was struck by a Toyota Prius traveling eastbound. The driver remained on the scene. Police have not announced whether the driver was charged.
Tomas Escudero Machado, 76, of Falls Church, was struck and killed on Arlington Boulevard at 6 a.m. on Dec. 18. The spot where he crossed the road, near Annandale Road, doesn’t have a crosswalk. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
After the driver of a 2003 Accord struck Machado, they continued on, traveling over two medians and striking multiple street signs and a pole before stopping. The crash is still under investigation.
Another pedestrian is in the hospital with life-threatening injuries after being struck on Little River Turnpike and Medford Drive in Annandale during the night of Dec. 29. Police say the driver remained on the scene.
The high number of pedestrian crashes has spurred local residents and safe street advocacy groups to demand action.
In August, Culmore residents staged a safe streets rally before a community meeting where officials from VDOT and the Fairfax County Department of Transportation told a large crowd they are planning several short-term improvements on Leesburg Pike.
Meanwhile, Fairfax County launched the Take a Moment campaign to urge drivers to slow down and watch out for pedestrians.
All state legislators are up for election in 2023. Now would be the time to question them on their plans to enhance pedestrian safety during the campaign season — especially beyond putting up signs or PR drive-slower campaigns
God bless their souls and families. This is so terribly sad. Thank you for always raising awareness
We could could blame legislators, put up signs, paint new crosswalks, host Q&A sessions to “engage” with the community, scream at the sky.
Or we could stop jaywalking.
several of the people here were crossing at either marked or unmarked crosswalks (unmarked being an intersection but no marked crosswalk, which is still considered a crosswalk and legal for pedestrians to cross).
There were way too many pedestrian deaths. We need to do a better job of promoting pedestrian safety, such as:
1) installing anti-jaywalking fencing where possible to discourage jaywalking
2) Installation of HAWK signals where appropriate
3) Installation of pedestrian bridges where appropriate
4) accelerating plans for multimodal transit conversion of our transportation infrastructure, including building more sidewalks.
Or you could not be a waste of space, educate yourself, and learn that jaywalking makes up a small percentage of the pedestrian fatalities around here, but wE’lL sToP jAyWaLkInG ok?
Jaywalking does not make up a small percentage of pedestrian deaths. That is demonstrably false.
Please demonstrate your source
https://popcenter.asu.edu/content/pedestrian-injuries-fatalities-0
Pedestrian Behavior
Unsafe pedestrian behavior is a major factor in pedestrian injuries and fatalities. In a recent study of 7,000 pedestrian-vehicle crashes in Florida, researchers discovered that pedestrians were at fault in 80 percent of these incidents.8 Similarly, in a U.K. study, pedestrian behavior accounted for 90 percent of crashes where a vehicle struck a pedestrian.9
Pedestrian jaywalking. Specifically, jaywalking is often cited as a poor pedestrian behavior that leads to pedestrian injuries and fatalities. Jaywalking is a general term for any form of illegal street-crossing by a pedestrian.10
I requested additional crosswalks as discussed in the Braddock Road Traffic Calming post and VDOT has rejected the request on the basis that those crosswalk locations do not meet Federal Traffic and Road guidelines.
On a more general question, does VDOT track pedestrian traffic/crossing patterns to determine crosswalk locations? I agree that jaywalking is part of the problem, but in most cases the pedestrian is either forced to jaywalk because of distances between crosswalks or too lazy. Nonetheless, its a safety hazard that needs more attention from VDOT and FDOT than just defaulting to federal standards that may not be appropriate in every situation.
….We could also enforce the laws against bully drivers who ignore their legal requirements. Until the 1930’s humans in cars and humans out of cars were required to share roadways, then legislation allowed drivers to increase speeds between intersections, with the exchange that pedestrians would have priority at crosswalks. [Peter Norton’s book: Fighting Traffic] Drivers understandably learned that pedestrians rarely will emerge unscathed in a conflict with an armored 2000+ pound vehicle, and use fear and metal fenders to bully their way through crosswalks. Car sellers introduced the concept of jaywalking to shift blame from the drivers.
The Virginia Supreme Court wrote, “Duty of Driver Approaching an Intersection. — The duty of a motor vehicle driver on approaching an intersection is to keep a vigilant lookout for pedestrians between curbs on the traveled portion of the highway, and when pedestrians are negotiating the crossing or about to step from the side into traffic lanes, to operate his car at such speed and under such control that he can readily turn one way or the other, and, if necessary, bring his machine to a stop in time to avoid injury to pedestrians.” Sawyer v. Blankenship, 160 Va. 651, 652-53 (Va. 1933)
Do drivers know the law about crosswalks and the need to stop for pedestrians? Probably. Do they care, in the probable absence of enforcement, except for one of these unfortunate fatalities? Probably not.
Arlington County Police hold weekly crosswalk enforcement operations to ticket drivers who ignore pedestrian priority. Similar-sized Mason District has had how many crosswalk enforcement efforts in the last year? Please, Elly, find out, as I’ve never heard of a single one.
Jaywalkers cannot be stopped by police in the state of Virginia if jaywalking is the only crime/infraction. Look it up. There is no way to enforce it.
Drivers are not being pulled over nearly as much as a result of the war on police.
Boy do I miss the old (pre 2020) police force. As the old saying goes: you don’t know what you have til it’s gone. Additionally I find it outrageous that police cannot stop jaywalkers. So jaywalking is completely legal?!?!
Thank you for this article and for highlighting traffic violence in our urban area. Pedestrians should take precautions, but they’re not the problem. These people died from the actions of drivers of lethal machines on poorly designed roads. We need to reduce the use of cars by providing safe & convenient alternatives for people to move around, I was a bike commuter before I retired, and it’s way more challenging than it should be … because of cars. As for jaywalking, it’s a “crime” invented by the automobile industry to get rid of competition. Cars ruin cities.