I came here to say the same, if a car ever hits a pedestrian the car is always at fault. Pedestrians follow the laws of physics, they don't just "come out of the shadows". It amazes me that Police could even think about issuing this statement, and also that people take it at face value. Guys, if you ever see a pedestrian in your path and you are not able to avoid them, you were driving too fast, simple as that.
And I would disagree with you that the driver was not at fault. He may have attenuating circumstances, but he was there to survey the environment and override the machine just in cases like that. The situation required him to lower the speed in order to avoid hitting a potential person "coming out of the shadows" and he did not do that. Once the person did show up, maybe it was too late for him to react, but he should have acted before. And let me take that back, he should at least hit the brakes; maybe it was too late to avoid the collision, but not hitting the brakes at all? Definitely at fault.
> if you ever see a pedestrian in your path and you are not able to avoid them, you were driving too fast, simple as that.
That flies in the face of biology and physics.
In the scenario where someone rapidly moves into the traffic from behind a parked car or some other visual obstruction: It takes up to 500ms for a human to take note (not react, just take note) of an obstacle, add reaction time to that and you'll arrive at a mean of over 1 second[0], usually more[1], before a driver can react to a new obstacle and this is for attentive drivers under good visibility.
Your argument relies on the fact that slower speeds result in shorter braking distances but braking distances are always non-zero, therefore it stands that there is a distance at which someone could move in front of the car and get hit even if the reaction time was 0ms, instead of ~1300.
Pedestrians don't teleport in front of your car. It takes them time to cover the distance from the sidewalk to the middle of your lane. At the normal walking speed (3 mph) it takes 2.73 seconds to cover the width of a lane (12 feet). No matter how "out of the shadows" someone comes, no way that distance is less than 6 feet, that's 1.36 seconds. Situations where the distance a pedestrian has to cover to go from invisible to in front of your car are numerous, like people crossing the street in front of a stopped bus. But that's when you slow down, and instead of 38 mph, you do 5 mph.
Look, you can quote science, and studies, or you can talk to anyone who has a driver license. In case you yourself have one, then all I'm saying here should not be news to you, or unreasonable.
And I would disagree with you that the driver was not at fault. He may have attenuating circumstances, but he was there to survey the environment and override the machine just in cases like that. The situation required him to lower the speed in order to avoid hitting a potential person "coming out of the shadows" and he did not do that. Once the person did show up, maybe it was too late for him to react, but he should have acted before. And let me take that back, he should at least hit the brakes; maybe it was too late to avoid the collision, but not hitting the brakes at all? Definitely at fault.