Jennifer Eikenhorst was driving home with her young daughters one evening after picking them up from a friend’s house. She was on a rural road and came to a stop at the top of a hill, so she didn’t see the approaching motorcyclist.
“His name was David, and when I entered the intersection, it was too late for him,” she said.
At that moment, Eikenhorst became a CADI, an acronym for Causing Accidental Death or Injury — a term coined by the late Maryann Gray, founder of the Hyacinth Fellowship, an organization that offers comfort and guidance to people who accidentally kill or seriously injure someone.
At least 30,000 people become CADIs and their victims each year, said Chris Yaw, the fellowship’s president. Many accidental deaths involve guns or medical mishaps, but the majority, he said, are caused by car crashes.
The deaths have inspired some CADIs, like Eikenhorst, to seek reforms to the nation’s car-centric transportation system that allows otherwise innocent people to become unintentional killers.
“We can’t escape risk with vehicles, but there are so many things we can do to improve their safety,” she said, suggesting more distracted-driving awareness campaigns and enhanced car-safety features.
The Alliance for Automotive Innovation, a lobbying group that represents most domestic car manufacturers, said in a statement that vehicles “continue to get even more safe as automakers across the board test, develop and integrate breakthrough safety technologies that help save lives and prevent injuries.”
That’s thanks to new features like exterior cameras and computer-controlled braking, as well as better blind spot detection systems.
Despite the improvements, pedestrian deaths continue to climb, reaching a 40-year high in the U.S. in 2022. Traffic deaths have also risen in recent years, according to a New York Times analysis.
In the first half of 2023, an estimated 19,515 people were killed in traffic crashes, according to the National Highway…
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