Today is the World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims, the third Sunday in November. It is a day to honor those lost and those living with life-changing injuries.
It is also a day to be clear about what it takes to stop preventable tragedies from taking place.
The losses are immense, with more than 40,000 people killed each year in the US, and an order of magnitude of people experiencing reported life-changing traffic injuries.
These experience are also uneven, varying from country to country and even from one city to the next.
First truth: Steady human transportation patterns are not accidents.
Severe crashes can feel random, but they are not. Their patterns come from choices we have made about how we design, manage, and enforce our transportation system.
Whatever state, county, or town you live in, you can bet on two things. First, there is a somewhat consistent level and trend in traffic fatalities from year to year. And two, there’s at least an order-of-magnitude jump in cases of life-changing injuries. You can take what happened this year and the fee before it, and pretty well predict what’s going to happen next year.
That yearly statistic is no accident. It’s a designed tolerance, and it is avoidable.
One proof is the big differences between places similar places a short distance apart. For example, Boulder, Colorado has about 3 fatal crashes per 100,000 residents while Thornton and Lakewood both exceed 12.
Whatever the local rate, until deaths and serious injuries are zero, the dominant cause is a system that allows the danger to persist.
Second truth: The dangers and solutions are known.
It is not a mystery what’s going on. Indeed, serious crashes are easy to research, and we know from study after study that they result from specific conditions. Some of those conditions:
- Kinetic energy. Speed and mass drive harm. When speeds fall, survival rises. When vehicles are smaller and streets self-enforce safe speeds, mistakes are less deadly. That means lower default limits that are backed by design, protected space for people walking and biking, safer crossings, better lighting, and safer fleets and vehicle fronts in cities.
- Consequences. People will make mistakes. Streets should forgive human error. Tighter corners, protected intersections, daylighted corners, roundabouts where they fit, and clear, visible crosswalks reduce the chance that a mistake becomes a fatal event.
- Compulsion. Many people have no real choice but to drive for every trip, even short ones, regardless of age, ability, or mental awareness. That raises exposure and stress, especially at odd hours when alternatives are fewer and conditions are even less forgiving. Frequent and reliable transit, safe routes to school and senior destinations, protected micromobility networks, zoning that lets homes sit near daily needs, and smarter curb management give people real options.
- Centrality. Policy, culture, and enforcement tend to center drivers and larger vehicles while shifting costs to everyone else. Safe System policies that put human life first, clear annual safety targets tied to funding and leadership performance, guardrails on vehicle size and weight in cities, equitable automated speed enforcement, and strong public and private fleet standards rebalance the system.
These dynamics are not about guesses. Cities that act to rebuild intersections, upgrade lighting, and mange speeds are bringing real reductions in deaths and serious injuries.
For advocates of safe streets, two questions come next. What commitments will make the most difference going forward? And how do we minimize preventable tragedy between now and full buildout by compressing timelines to delivery?
Third truth: Making big changes depends on being realistic and respectful about concerns, while doing the hard work of selling a better vision.
Safe streets is a good idea. It saves lives and makes daily life calmer, healthier, and more affordable.
It also brings change. Construction disrupts routines. New patterns take time to learn. Different concepts can conflict with long-held beliefs about how streets are supposed to work and what good transportation governance looks like.
However good staff are at the local public agency responsible for transportation, they are probably limited by elected officials. And those officials are typically not technical experts, so they listen to what they hear from community members.
In sum, safe streets is an excellent policy idea, but upstream from policy is politics, and culture is upstream from that.
So, to have more productive conversations with the community—and electeds—now and over time, use these methods:
Share the vision. What does the destination look like? What’s on the table, in vivid, compelling description? Why is life better for more people, including drivers?
Next, think about setting expectations for any kind of a remodel. You want to do it, but it’s still going to cause some uncertainty, disruption, and a pain. And it’s clearly obvious to anyone observing that you have changes planned that are going to affect their lives. So, say so upfront, listen, and build the list together.
From there, talk about what’s happening as an investment. There are pluses and minuses and we can see how they net out. And indeed, the near term is going to involve some costs, and we will do our best to mitigate them. But we are doing it so we can have something better.
You won’t win everyone. But it is a way to build important support—and minimize easy ways future electeds can reverse course—over time.
A call to action
Finally, the hard part: Commit to sharing these concepts with your local elected officials or agencies at least once per quarter in the year ahead. Pick a city, county, school district, MPO, or state DOT and rotate.
Using these themes as a guide, send a short letter or give two minutes of public comment. Alternatively, write an op-ed in your local paper or speak at a local community event.
If you are already doing this quarterly or more, thank you. Now bring a friend.
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