Pedestrian struck and killed in the South End

I looked at this intersection in Google Street View. Looks like there's a crosswalk there, with downward-pointing streetlamps at either end of the crosswalk. If those lights are working as intended, there shouldn't be a lack of illumination there. (I concede that GSV doesn't show what the intersection is like at night. Lights may be burned out. The streetlights may also be of a design that was chosen for looks rather than for actual ability to project illumination. There may also have been resident complaints about harsh lighting entering residential buildings at night, prompting a lowered level of lighting.)

Maybe the driver was looking at their phone and not the road.

The problem here isn't lighting (it is a very well lit area), it's the street design. It promotes speeding and bad driver behavior. Tremont Street here has six lanes: two parking lanes and four travel lanes -two in each direction. A daily occurrence here: A pedestrian is crossing Tremont at say West Brookline St or West Canton St, etc., cars yield in the first two lanes, and then the third lane as the pedestrian approaches the yellow line. Traffic approaching the cars that stopped in the left lane for the pedestrian, instead of slowing or stopping (in many cases probably assuming that the traffic is stopped because someone is taking a left turn), will instead pass the stopped cars at full speed on the right, and right across the occupied crosswalk. What is needed here are stop signs every few blocks or a lane reduction. It is a dangerous speedway and will continue to be until changes are made.

Going down the road is exciting, like a race. There must be something at the end that is good to have, so we have to beat everybody else to it.

Not just drivers, works on the minds of bikers too. In fact it's probably more powerful on the minds of bikers, because we are getting beat by all these car people, so the chance to make up ground is much harder to resist.

So if you see somebody speeding past you it's hard not to try to catch up.

N/t

Right, because I've never seen a pedestrian step out into traffic without heeding caution.

It doesn't require high speeds to kill someone with a vehicle. The driver at least stayed at the scene with the victim, so why don't we let this shake out before we go pinning blame on one party?