A new map shows the most dangerous intersections for pedestrians in Los Angeles. Vanessa Ruiz reports for the NBC4 News at 5 p.m. on March 20, 2015.
A Southern California group is hoping to make LA's streets safer for Angelenos by sharing the staggering number of pedestrian collisions at some of the city's busiest intersections.
Los Angeles Walks, an organization that strives to make walking in LA enjoyable and safe, created a map to show the city's pedestrian hot spots.
That map marks 49 pedestrian vs. car collisions at the famed Hollywood and Highland intersection, and 51 pedestrian collisions at downtown LA's 7th and Spring streets.
"We hope that a map like this, in raising awareness like that, will cause our city leaders to take action and say '100 deaths (of) people walking a year is not acceptable,'" said Jessica Meaney of Los Angeles Walks. "Every couple of days we see in the news, someone's either been (in a) hit-and-run (while) walking or been killed, and we hope that we raise awareness to address this and make it safer for all of us so we can enjoy LA."
That's the hope, but the reality is between 2003 and 2009, there were 19,000 pedestrian involved accidents, many of them deadly.
Kelly Smith not only walks, but jogs frequently by her home near Silver Lake and is a perfect example of what many pedestrians are up against on Santa Monica Boulevard and Vermont Avenue, an intersection, where about 40 people are hit each year.
"I almost get hit by cars, like, all the time," Smith said. "People don't look, they're just like speeding through, and people make turns really sharply and they don't really watch."
In the map, there are over 10 hot spots with over 30 people getting hit in each one every year.
Flower Street and Wilshire Boulevard in downtown LA is one of those dangerous intersections, with an average of 41 pedestrians involved in accidents.
"When I'm crossing the street, I like to look twice because some of the drivers are on their phones," said Jacob Gago, who works downtown. "I can't trust anybody driving."
