San Diego, California News Station - KFMB Channel 8 - cbs8.comWatch your step on the most dangerous streets in San Diego

Watch your step on the most dangerous streets in San Diego

SAN DIEGO, Calif. (CBS 8) - Pedestrians need to watch their step here in San Diego. A new pedestrian safety study finds the San Diego region is one of the top 10 most dangerous places to walk in the country.

Cars rushing downhill or emerging from freeways can make walking downtown dangerous. In the past 15 years, 2,000 pedestrians have died walking San Diego's streets. Most people we spoke to on foot blame careless drivers, but pedestrian advocates say at some point traffic engineers share the blame for designing dangerous roads.

"Our roads are simply not designed for pedestrians and cyclists. Our roads are built for speeding cars," Walk San Diego Executive Director Ken Grimes said.

The national average of pedestrian deaths is 11.4 percent, but in the San Diego area that number almost doubles to 20.4 percent.

"Which places us 10th among large cities," Grimes said.

Grimes says the key to pedestrian safety is calming traffic down, for example, installing roundabouts. They also have other ideas.

Walk San Diego feels the downtown district has too many one-way streets. They say one-way streets encourage drivers to speed. It was on a three-lane, one-way street where last month police say a driver illegally talking on a cell phone ran a red light and hit a man in a wheelchair.

Walk San Diego also says three-lane boulevards put drivers into freeway mode and create unsafe situations for pedestrians.

Another way to protect pedestrians is to shrink the size of busy intersections. Not only do pedestrians stand out while crossing the street, but the distance they have to travel is almost cut in half.