She spoke in support of the legislation, pointing to the fact that crashes involving motor vehicles are the leading cause of death of children under 18 years of age. She said a recent multi-year study showed that in New Haven, the rate of pediatric pedestrian injuries was twice the national average. “For 2007, 13 percent of all accidents evaluated at Yale New Haven Hospital involved pedestrians struck by vehicles, and that was an eight-fold increase over 2006.”