Health Voices

The Dangers of Driving

• Yale PHC • Season 1 • Episode 5

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America has a driving problem. 

Before COVID-19, the prevalence of crashes was decreasing as more Americans became more comfortable with driving behind the wheel. However, since 2020, driving has only increased as more than 30,000 Americans have died in car crashes; more specifically, more than 40,000 Americans died from car crashes in 2021. And the numbers seem to only be increasing even after the COVID-19 pandemic has begun to die down. So, despite drivers’ education, the many ads that tried to curb distractions during driving, and the policies put in place, do car crashes still happen? And what can the individual, organization, and government do to begin to effectively address this issue?

To help answer these questions, we talk with Dr. Kirsten Bechtel, professor of emergency medicine at the Yale School of Medicine, and the Yale Traffic Safety Subcommittee chair. 

[00:00-07:52] Introduction and the Role of the Yale Traffic Safety Subcommittee

[08:00-14:08]: Traffic Safety in Public Health

[14:09-18:40]: Distractions in Driving (Alcohol and Smoking)

(Look around 21st minute)

[18:41-26:13]: Road Infrastructure

[26:14-28:30]: Disparities in Traffic Safety

[28:31-33:20]: Traffic Safety and COVID-19

[33:21-35:00]: Automobile Industry

[35:00-37:23]: Conclusion

Speaker 1:

Welcome to Health Voices, a podcast from the Yale Public Health Coalition where we discuss the breadth and depth of public health and how it actually impacts the individual in the New Haven area and beyond. Music.

Speaker 2:

My name is Frederick Rivas, georgie, and my name is Sahil Chabra, and we welcome you to the fourth episode of Health Voices Music.

Speaker 1:

In this episode, we wanted to talk about a more unconventional, lesser known, yet highly relevant public health topic traffic safety. Most Americans don't consider road safety as a huge public health issue. However, there's been more than a 16% increase in the number of deadly accidents, with about 50,000 crashes per year.

Speaker 2:

Traffic safety involves multiple components, from road infrastructure to driver behavior to even government action. It's one of the most complex aspects of public health that drives immediate and permanent consequences for people involved. Even though Americans learn how to drive safely through driver education, it seems as if traffic safety has only gotten worse over the years, especially since the pandemic.

Speaker 1:

So to understand traffic safety and how we can actually develop it. We talk with Dr Kirsten Bechtel, who is a professor of pediatric emergency medicine at the Yale School of Medicine and the director of the Yale Traffic Safety Subcommittee. Let's dive in.

Speaker 2:

Well, hello, Dr Kirsten Bechtel. Thank you so much for coming here today. Please would you be able to tell us, as we get started, what is it you do at the Yale School of Medicine and how did you become interested in the field of traffic safety?

Speaker 3:

So I'm one of the pediatric emergency medicine physicians at the School of Medicine and I became interested in traffic safety Probably about 16 years ago. In 2008, there were two high-profile deaths of pedestrians in New Haven. One was a medical student, mila Rainoff, who died at the corner of York and South Frontage, and another was a 11-year-old girl shortly thereafter named Gabby Lewis, who died in Westville and was hit by somebody who ran a red light, and she was 11 years old, and they happened in the spring of 2008. And those deaths really galvanized the New Haven community and the Yale community to do something about traffic safety. So shortly thereafter, the city worked on something called a Complete Streets Plan, whereby any time that they had to do anything to the streets to change a traffic light or a stop sign they had to be mindful of everyone who uses the road, not just the cars, but the pedestrians, the cyclists, the skateboarders, people who have physical challenges, who are in wheelchairs. They had to be mindful of all the people who use the road, not just motor vehicles.

Speaker 2:

On that note, it's been about 15 years since this movement was really galvanized. Would you be able to tell us more about the changes that New Haven has seen in traffic safety in the intervening years, as well as the improvements in public health and safety as a result of those changes?

Speaker 3:

So one of the things that Yale did shortly after 2008, I believe it was in 2011, they started the Yale Traffic Safety Committee, and it's a committee of folks from the Yale community who are interested in public health and public safety, and so it's a very multidisciplinary committee that I chair, and I've been fortunate enough to chair for the past 13 years, where we get together quarterly and discuss challenges on campus where people find it difficult to navigate the roadway. One thing that's unique about Yale's campus is that many city streets bisect and crisscross the campus, and so it's not something where, like other campuses, where it's, you know, behind a gate and all the you know roads or paths that students use or community members use to travel are, you know, where there are no cars, and here, most of the paths and places where people walk and ride their bikes or skateboards are on city streets, and so it presents unique challenges, because we have to work with the city as well as the Yale community to identify challenges on campus, and one of the things that Yale has done is they've done a lot of improvements when they've made infrastructure changes or architectural changes to the campus. So you see, then, the relatively newer colleges Ben Franklin and Polly Murray where when they built those campuses they put in those mid-block crossings and those speed humps so that people and they also made the crosswalk go out further into the road so people didn't have to people like pedestrians or other people who are in a car didn't have to travel a long distance across the road, so it kind of shortens their traveling distance and makes it less likely that somebody would get hit by a car. And so other places where Yale has made a lot of improvements is right here in in front of Library Walk where there's a mid-block crossing there that was made because of concerns from the committee and we listen to input from a lot of community members that that was a natural crossing point for folks. But it was in the middle of a long block between Chapel and Elm Street where there was a signalized intersection where people can cross, and so they made a mid-block crossing, which has been really, really helpful and really improved safety.

Speaker 3:

Another place that the university has made safety improvements is in front of Timothy Dwight College where Temple and Wall Street come together, and they made a signalized mid-block crossing there because there was a student who was in a wheelchair and had to cross that intersection every day and she wasn't well seen by cars, and so they made those changes so that folks would be well visible when they were crossing that intersection at Temple and Wall Street.

Speaker 3:

So that's something that infrastructure changes have made places a lot more safe, because it makes people interact with the infrastructure in such a way that they become safer when they cross the street and cars also see the flashing lights and they're allergic to the fact that there's new activity up there that's different than them just driving along and waiting at the next stoplight. And so those are things that the university has done. That has really made the campus a lot safer, and we've also worked on making people more aware of the presence of the Traffic Safety Committee so that if folks have concerns about places on campus, we can work with the city, with different organizations, to make a place more safe in terms of crossing or using it, where people who are what we call vulnerable users so people who aren't in cars or in motorized vehicles can interact with that part of the campus safely and not worry about getting hit by a car or injured or killed.

Speaker 2:

No, it's very good to see, even in only about 10 to 15 years, all the progress that's been made. It's always very good to see collaboration between the university and the city on these sorts of issues.

Speaker 1:

We've talked about how the Yale Traffic Safety Committee has improved traffic safety on campus, so could you talk about how traffic safety is a public health issue a little bit more broadly?

Speaker 3:

Sure. So I'd like to think of traffic safety as a form of public health advocacy, because everyone has to walk or ride or get from one place to another on campus. And so if the active I guess active advocacy where you think about the road, the sidewalk, the intersection, and you think about how to make it as safe as possible for everyone that uses it, so that nobody who uses it will get injured or killed because they were, you know, interacting or using that street or crosswalk or sidewalk, and so it's active advocacy, and advocacy I always think about as a form of collaboration. You know, if you have the broader your advocacy network is, the more I think effective you can be, because you have to collaborate with lots of different people and get their input as to what they find are either facilitators or challenges to improving safety at any one point you know, on campus.

Speaker 2:

Well, no, that's very important to see and I mean I think a lot of people can obviously tell. I mean I believe the statistic I read is something around like last year, something around like 50,000 people died due to traffic accidents. I mean extraordinary number. That's comparable to a lot of other natural forms of death. I suppose as well to consider it even more broadly, as it as as traffic safety is a real political issue, besides, of course, the very obvious effects on public health it has, would you also be able to tell us why this is an important issue from a policy and economics perspective, perhaps for government officials?

Speaker 3:

So one of the things that is good about a very walkable, bikeable neighborhood is that it's good for people's health because they get out of cars and they feel like it's safe to walk and bike. And New Haven is a very walkable city. It's one of the most walkable cities in the country, partly because of the university, and lots of folks don't own cars, who belong to the university, so they have to get to from one point to another on campus either by foot or bike or skateboard or some other you know smaller motorized device, and so it's an economic. It has economic benefits as well, as well as public health benefits. The more people are active, obviously, the better their health is going to be. It has a lot of economic benefits because more people that are on the street and not searching for parking, they might be more prone to, you know, stopping in a store or a place or getting a cup of coffee, because they're proximate, they're right there, they don't have to pay for parking, they're just walking by, and they might be more prone to going into, you know, the Apple Store or to, you know, common grounds or other places on campus where you know folks. You know these are all mom and pops. A lot of these places are mom and pop shops that you know help with the economic vibe by vitality of of the city.

Speaker 3:

And then it's also helpful from a public safety perspective, because the more eyes that are on the street, the more likely you might be able to notice something that might be unsafe and report it. And it's been shown that public safety is improved with more people who are walking and biking and not, you know, driving around in cars. Because when you're driving around in a car you're concentrating, hopefully, on driving, whereas if you're walking you can be more, you have time to notice your environment around you, and the more time that you have that ability to notice the environment around you, the more likely you're going to, you might see something that might be unsafe and you might be more likely to report it. So it has economic, public safety and public health benefits. The more that we get people out of cars, in addition to the environmental impact, the more we get people out of single occupancy vehicles, the better it is for our environment as well.

Speaker 1:

Awesome. Thank you so much. So what are some of the other factors? I know how you mentioned that pedestrians are at a high risk. What are some of the other contributing factors to issues with traffic safety?

Speaker 3:

So we like to think about the three, or actually four E's of traffic safety. So it's engineering. So it's the environment of you know the actual infrastructure that makes up our roads and crosswalks and sidewalks. It's education, so people who use it are more likely if they're educated about how to use it. You know push the walk button, you know you're going to get the walk signal sooner than if you're waiting.

Speaker 3:

Enforcement, so whereby you know public safety officers or law enforcement, or enforce. You know speed limits and red light running. And then equity as well. You want to make sure that any changes you make to the infrastructure so that people are more likely to get out of their cars and walk and bike and skateboard and things like that, are also equitable as well, so that everyone can enjoy the benefits of having very safe infrastructure to get out of their cars and walk and do things like that, yeah, no, I mean, they're definitely quite a bit of actions municipalities or, you know, state or federal governments could take to improve driving safety, but unfortunately, I mean, it seems like there's just a lot of individual choice involved as well.

Speaker 2:

Right, like, I think in, the big issue that people think about is, unfortunately, distracted driving, especially nowadays, the last 10 to 15 years, with the rise of smartphones. Would you be able to tell us what are the trends with smartphones and drivers, especially with young drivers, as it seems, at least in the minds of a lot of people, that there's a correlation between distracted driving and tend to be being younger, right, being able to growing up with a cell phone?

Speaker 3:

Would you be?

Speaker 2:

able to tell us more about this?

Speaker 3:

So one of the things that, for example, driving safety classes so or driver education classes, have really put an emphasis on doing, things that make it less likely for you to be distracted by your phone. So you know, my daughter is actually going through driving safety classes right now and you know she's taught to put her phone in the back seat, you know, by the driver, the driving instructor. I think parents need to model that behavior because it's been shown that if your parents aren't good drivers than you are likely to be as a, you know, as a teenager when you're getting your driver's license, you're more likely to be not such a great driver either. So parents really need to model that behavior that they don't use their phone. You know a lot of the consoles in motor vehicles are very complex, you know, with the GPS and with the, the entertainment systems, and people get very distracted by that. And I think cars have to. You know car manufacturers are now becoming a little bit more mindful of how distracting those consoles can be and they're as as distracting as a cell phone is. So I think parents really, for their children who are going to learn how to drive, they really need to model good behavior so that that translates to their adolescent when they get to drive by themselves, that they're more likely to honor good behavior.

Speaker 3:

But it's really, it's hard. You know it's, it's. We're so consumed by having you know where's my phone and trying to. You know there's a lots of campaigns that have been used. You know April is distracted driving month and you know we've worked with Yale Public Safety to to highlight that. And it's not just distracted driving, it's distracted walking or biking. You know that can be just as dangerous. But we really need to really rethink the ways that we can disengage people from their cell phones when they're traveling, whether it's in a car or on a bike or walking.

Speaker 1:

Now let's move to another related topic on driver responsibility. A large proportion of car accidents are a result of drunk driving. Why do you believe people drive when drunk, and how can drunk driving be prevented?

Speaker 3:

I think you also have to think about cannabis as well, now that it's legal, because that's been actually correlated, at least here in Connecticut, with the legalization of cannabis or the more widespread use of cannabis, with wrong-way driving and with distracted driving or impaired driving, and so one of the things about alcohol and cannabis is it makes you a little disinhibited and it makes you think your judgment can be impaired in some ways, and so you think I'm not that bad, I can drive.

Speaker 3:

Driving is sort of you know, to many people it's second nature, but we really need to work on public safety campaigns. Or you know where you buy cannabis or you buy alcohol, where you really we talk much more about you know the likelihood that you might get into a crash if you've consumed cannabis or ingested alcohol. And you know, 30 years ago we had mothers against drunk driving, which really has done a lot to reduce drunk driving fatalities and injuries, and I think we need a similar sort of campaign for cannabis, because that's something that's been. You know it's correlated. You can't, you know, just because something's correlated doesn't mean it caused it, but it is associated with impaired driving and a lot of the wrong-way driving that we've seen in our state where people are going the wrong way on the highway or an exit ramp, and we need to think similarly, like we did with mothers against drunk driving. You know similar mechanisms for cannabis for example.

Speaker 2:

No, yeah, I mean there's a lot of action to be done as well, not just from individuals, but certainly from municipalities themselves. I think, on that note, one thing that we also wanted to talk about was not just like perhaps, laws, as you mentioned, or education as well, but there seems to be a pretty important correlation with actual infrastructure as well and driving safety. As you may know, road stability is very variant depending on where you are in the United States. Some roads are very sleek and new and well maintained, and some roads are. Some roads, even just a few miles down, might be quite dilapidated and full of potholes. I mean, what's the reason for this? Why is the road infrastructure not quite a centralized? What could be done about it in the future? What could be policy actions and how might this improve driver safety?

Speaker 3:

So it depends on where the road is located and what jurisdiction it is.

Speaker 3:

You know, like federal roads have federal funding to maintain them, state roads have state funding through, like our gas tax or our tolls. Connecticut is a place where we don't have tolls and I know that's something that a lot of people is an anathema to people in Connecticut. But, like, for example, new Jersey, a lot of the interstate tolls go to maintaining their highways and we don't have a similar mechanism in Connecticut. We rely, I believe, on a lot more on federal funding to maintain our roadways as opposed to state funding. Although we do get money from, I believe, the gas tax to maintain our roads, a lot of it comes down to priorities.

Speaker 3:

In some ways, roads that have a lot of potholes in them make people slow down and when people slow down, they're less likely, if they're going to hit somebody, to cause serious injury or death. We know that speed kills and that around 25 miles per hour, if you hit somebody, there's a good chance that that vulnerable user will survive, whereas if you go over 30 miles per hour, even up to 40 miles per hour, then the reverse happens where it's much more likely that person is going to be killed by that.

Speaker 3:

So anyway, we can get our roads to have people slow down. I know it's probably not a popular thing to say, but Whitney Avenue, for example, in New Haven is full of potholes. But I think it's much different driving in New Haven on Whitney Avenue than in Hamden, where people routinely go 50, 60 miles an hour down Whitney Avenue in Hamden, and that's one place where I would never want to ride my bike. I'd feel a little bit more comfortable riding my bike on Whitney Avenue in New Haven because I think cars really go a lot slower than they do in Hamden.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, no, I mean, it's pretty complex. It seems more like to me as well, and for whatever it is, the solution more generally ought to be, as I think you've alluded to, just getting more people off the road, perhaps more public transportation or walkability.

Speaker 1:

So, on the topic of infrastructure of roads and like we were talking about potholes, which actually makes drivers slow down, there was research done by Johns Hopkins that narrow lanes actually seem to increase traffic safety and reduce crashes. Why do you believe this works and do you think that this type of road should be implemented across the nation?

Speaker 3:

So it's been shown that people drive slower and they drive more carefully when a road is narrower.

Speaker 3:

You think about it if there's a corollary, like if you're pulling into a very tight parking space where there's two cars that are really close to you, you're going to be much more likely to drive in slowly so that you don't hit the cars.

Speaker 3:

The similar sort of analogy you can use with narrow lanes and that's one thing that I know the city of New Haven is considering for Frontage Road which bisects the medical campus, and there's plans I'm not sure they're in development and hopefully they'll become a reality soon is that they're going to narrow the width of those lanes from 11 feet to 10 feet and that's sort of kind of like a magic number in which people will drive much more slowly and much more likely to bathe.

Speaker 3:

The speed limit Speed limit in New Haven is 25 miles per hour but we know that folks from work that our committee is done. We had a speed radar sign that our committee purchased and put in right at the corner of York and South Frontage and we saw that people in vehicles routinely were driving over 40 miles per hour through that very congested area of the medical campus. And we know from some of the fatalities that have happened at that intersection that speed was a factor in the pedestrian's death. And any way that you can make the roads now, or even with paint, and just painting lines that are closer together, you will get people to drive much more slowly than they would if it was from 10 feet to 11 feet.

Speaker 1:

So you've mentioned a lot of benefits of narrow lanes, but are there any drawbacks to roads having narrow lanes, or is there any potential danger that this poses to drivers?

Speaker 3:

To my knowledge, not really, because I think people are much more likely to really be mindful of the road and how fast they're going and how close they are to the car next to them or to the sidewalk that's on the other side of them. And I think that it forces people to slow down because when you slow down you're much more likely to be in control of the vehicle and any decisions you make are not going to be compounded by virtue of the fact that you're driving at a much slower rate of speed. That makes sense.

Speaker 2:

Have we seen any effects of the narrowing of roads, say bringing in more pedestrian traffic? I mean because I guess one thing that could happen, right like if you narrow, you know, taking space away from roads means that, I mean even if you have the same amount of cars, right like that's a higher traffic density, I suppose that might be more likely for traffic jams. Does this encourage as well people to maybe not take the car? Or have we seen issues that it's just, I suppose, in exchange for more safety, there is just slower traffic.

Speaker 3:

I think one of the things that when they were doing the connector that goes across, like from 91 and 95, that goes downtown, one of the things you know you have to make as a driver, you have to make a really quick downshift in speed because you go from like 60 miles an hour to 25 miles an hour in a very short period of time and traffic engineers were able to sort of make you know so.

Speaker 3:

The concern was that people would be jamming on the brakes and there would be all these accidents because people had to make that adjustment very quickly. But the way that the traffic engineers were able to signalize the intersection lights so that people could make that transition without like jamming on the brakes and traffic flows much more evenly but slower and you know, for people who crossed Church Street or College Street where it enters, you know where it enters, or even the new intersection at Orange Street, the traffic engineers were able to figure out how to keep traffic moving but at a slower speed and so that people could make that transition without like jamming on the brakes.

Speaker 2:

So let's switch gears a little bit and, if you wouldn't mind, talking about the socioeconomic issues intersect with traffic safety. We know, unfortunately, that a lot of people who are pedestrians tend to be lower income, middle and upper class people, tend to have their own cars or live in parts of cities or towns that are not very walkable, ie suburbia. What are the distinct issues that people might not necessarily think of at first, and how are improving traffic safety is correlated with improving issues of socioeconomic metrics.

Speaker 3:

So it's been shown that if you increase the green space around areas that have socioeconomic challenges, that you're much more likely to reduce things like crime. You're much more likely to improve health. People will be much more likely to get out and use the green space and maybe walk. So just there's been a lot of studies that have shown correlations between increasing the green space and people's health and well being.

Speaker 3:

If you make the infrastructure such that people feel like they can get out and walk and people people in cars aren't buzzing by them at 60 miles an hour, they're much more likely to get out and walk. And for the reasons that I mentioned earlier, the more people on the street, the more you have economic vitality, the more you have public safety and the more that you improve their health. And so I know the city of New Haven is really working hard to improve these areas for folks that have those socioeconomic challenges. And there's a lot of data that suggests that if you improve the green space, you improve the infrastructure. So people are much more likely to get out and walk and use those green spaces or cross at that intersection and go to the store across the street. There's many different types of benefits for you know, from an economic, public health and public safety perspective.

Speaker 1:

That makes a lot of sense. So now let's move to a more contemporary topic, on how COVID-19 and driving are related. During the pandemic, people were driving a lot less, but there was actually a higher incidence of driving accidents. Why do you believe this might have been the case?

Speaker 3:

So one of the things that people have hypothesized about why there's a correlation between, you know, the pandemic and bad driving is that the roads.

Speaker 3:

One of the theories is that the roads were less congested and so when the roads are less congested and there's less people on the road or less people are parked on either side of the street, you're much more likely to go quickly. That doesn't explain, like wrong way, driving and driving fast on highways and there's been sort of a disconnect of folks in terms of and this is just my own hypothesis that you know, people were deprived for so long during the pandemic, because of lockdowns and inability to socialize and to be out among other people, that they were became more likely to take risks, and one of the risks that they take is, you know, driving fast. And driving fast could also happen because there's less people out, so that you know there's less cars parked on the sides of the street and you're much more likely to buzz down the highway or buzz down Whitney Avenue, for example, because there's less people around. That idea of things encroaching on your lane space might make you speed, may make you more likely to speed, if that makes sense.

Speaker 2:

I suppose then I mean, as I mentioned earlier right that the there was a substantial increase after a after debts had largely plateaued and decreased because of a lot of changes. In the 2010s they increase substantially to back to 50,000, which is pretty astounding, right. The hometown where I'm from is about 70,000. That's 70% of my hometown being killed in car crashes. What are the general trends you've seen, I suppose, after 2022 and 23, and which where I suppose we might call kind of the sort of end of the pandemic? Do you see, in this case, some kind of a return to normalcy, or has driving continued to only become worse, perhaps a plateau? Or where do you see this effect of the pandemic on driving leading?

Speaker 3:

Right after the pandemic there was a spike in motor vehicle crashes and injuries from motor vehicle crashes for passengers and the motor vehicles for vulnerable users when a car hits somebody.

Speaker 3:

It seems to, at least in my understanding, at least in Connecticut has plateaued a little bit and whether or not that's more of a return to normalcy where more people are out and more people are on the roadways and you're not the lone car on 91 going from Middletown to New Haven and able to do 80, 90 miles an hour because there's nobody else around, I think just the fact that more people are out and about might have put maybe not to make a pun but put the brakes on, you know on bad driving, but I think the more we get back to pre-COVID levels of being out and about, you know on the, you know people walking, people, biking, people in cars, you know the more maybe that would also be correlated with a return to the pre-COVID levels of, you know, public safety, because we had made a lot of strides with motor vehicle safety in general in the United States, especially with respect to passenger safety, because cars have become more safe and driving is now more.

Speaker 3:

The instruction you get for driving is much more rigorous. You know we have teen driving laws where, you know, teenagers have to be a certain age and they can. You know they can't drive independently until they've been supervised for a certain period of time before they can drive independently on their own. And we've really made a dent in, you know, pre-covid, in the level of injuries and deaths that we saw with motor vehicle crashes with respect to passengers and drivers and, I think, more of a return to normalcy in a normal society. I don't know what a normal society might look like, but the more people are that are out and about, the more likely maybe people have better driving behavior.

Speaker 2:

I suppose, one more thing in regards to driving safety as well, especially that perhaps so we can talk about briefly the effects of car design and the auto industry. You know, it's kind of fun to well, in a morbid sort of way, to watch these videos of cars from the 50s and 60s, right?

Speaker 2:

They weren't designed so when they crash, the car is just kind of crumple into a sandwich. In what ways, in the last 10 to 20 years and going forward, might the auto industry improve car designs, or how have they done so to prevent fatalities?

Speaker 3:

So one of the things that car manufacturers has done is made safety of their vehicles a very key piece to the consumer, that our cars are the safest, you know, like, for example, you know we have the Insurance, the Institute for Insurance, iihs, institute for Highway Safety, where they crash test all these vehicles and they give grades to how well you're going to survive or not be injured in a front, you know, frontal car crash or side car crash or a rear car crash, and so now that's a buying that's for the consumer, something that they think about when they purchase a car, how safe it is. I think where the car manufacturers can really move the needle now is the consoles that they have with GPS and entertainment. They have to make them less distracting, because that's what's really, I think, contributing to distraction just as much as a cell phone does in a vehicle, and I think they have a ways to go to make those a little bit less distracting for the driver.

Speaker 1:

Alright, I think we've covered a lot of ground you know, from road infrastructure to pedestrian safety, as well as you know the automobile industry. So, to conclude this interview, if there's one thing about traffic safety that you want people to know, maybe one thing for drivers to know and one thing for pedestrians to know, what would those things be?

Speaker 3:

So that you know because and this is something I tell folks within the Yale community when you're driving across campus you could hit somebody that you know, that you work with, that you teach and that you have to be. It's your responsibility as a driver to drive slowly and carefully and not in a distracted manner because you could hit somebody that you know. On the flip side, if you're a pedestrian, nobody wants to hit a pedestrian. So you want to be as safe as possible. You don't want to be distracted, you want to have your eyes up and looking around because you don't want to be the person who gets hit, because the person who hit you is going to feel. You know the tremendous amount of guilt. So you know you want to be as responsible as a driver is in terms of being a responsible user of the roadway.

Speaker 2:

Well, thank you so much for coming onto our podcast, dr Bechtel, and to all our viewers out there, not to sound like a PSA, but keep your eyes on the road. We hope to see you next time for the fifth episode of Health Voices. This is Frederick Rivas, georgie from Health Voices. Health Voices is a podcast produced by the Vice-Feride, salman and Sahil Shabra, with support from Yale PhD Vice President Dylan Kim and the entire PhD board. If you have any questions about the podcast or would like to be featured in an episode, please email us at YalePhcPodNews at gmailcom. That is, yalephcpodnews at gmailcom. Thanks again for listening today.