Safety
Basics
Families of NYC Traffic Violence Victims Band Together for Safer Streets
On Sunday, New Yorkers who've lost loved ones to traffic violence gathered on the steps of City Hall in Lower Manhattan to launch Families for Safe Streets, a new initiative advocating for street designs and traffic enforcement that will save lives. In this moving Streetfilm, members of Families for Safe Streets talk about their goals and why they're speaking out.
February 25, 2014
Developing Nations Respond to UN’s “Decade of Action for Road Safety”
As poorly as America performs on street safety compared to places like Germany, the UK, Japan, and the Netherlands, traffic violence is an even graver public health threat in most other countries. Despite the fact that Africa has fewer cars per person than any other continent, for instance, no other suffers from a worse traffic fatality rate. Each year, 24 out of every 100,000 Africans are killed in traffic, with 38 percent of those deaths being pedestrians.
February 24, 2014
Before We Build, We Should Review How a Project Will Affect Safety
Jim Aloisi is a Boston-based lawyer, historian and transportation policymaker. He is a former Massachusetts state secretary of transportation. His most recent book is The Vidal Lecture.
February 11, 2014
New Bill Would Make Bike/Ped Projects Eligible for TIFIA Loans
The day after President Obama’s State of the Union plea to improve economic opportunity for struggling Americans, New Jersey Democrat Albio Sires introduced a bill that he says will help meet that goal.
January 30, 2014
Senators Seek to Shield Motor Vehicle Crash Data From Public View
A new bill introduced by Senators John Hoeven (R-ND) and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) would further entrench rules that make it difficult for crash investigators to access black box data from cars.
January 23, 2014
Trucks and Cities Are Like Oil and Water. Is There a Solution?
About 350 pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists are killed each year by large trucks in this country. Big freight trucks are incompatible with cities in many ways, bringing danger, pollution, noise, and traffic congestion. They park in bike lanes and have shockingly big blind spots, putting everyone around them at risk. And yet, most cities haven't found a way to reconcile the need to move goods with all their other priorities.
January 9, 2014
Talking Headways Podcast, Episode 4: Car Brain
In this week's podcast, Jeff and I discuss the impressive turnout -- and possible pitfalls -- of London's "die-in" demonstration for bike safety. We try to contain our envy (but not our amazement) at Paul Salopek's seven-year walk tracing the path of Homo sapiens from the Rift Valley to Tierra del Fuego. And we discuss why even passionate transit advocates know what it means to be embarrassed about taking the bus.
December 5, 2013
Report: More Kids Are Walking to School
The long-term decline of walking and biking to school has been linked to the childhood obesity epidemic, a big share of morning rush hour traffic, and even kids' lack of attention in class. In 1969, 41 percent of children in grades K–8 lived within one mile of school, and of those kids, 89 percent usually walked or biked. By 2009, 31 percent lived within a mile of school -- and only 35 percent of them walked or biked.
December 3, 2013
Fight Street Crime With Speed Bumps and Crosswalks
In Gabe Klein’s exit interview with Chicago Mag, the outgoing transportation commissioner predicted that in the next few years, cities will be paying more attention to the correlation between lawbreaking by drivers and other kinds of crime.
November 25, 2013
It’s Official: 33,561 People Killed in Traffic on American Streets Last Year
The official 2012 death toll is out for our nation's poorly-designed, auto-centric transportation system. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, traffic injuries on the nation's roadways claimed the lives of 33,561 people. The headline of the agency's press release, "NHTSA Data Confirms Traffic Fatalities Increased In 2012," is quickly walked back by the subhed, which attempts a silver lining: "Highway deaths over the past 5 years remain at historic lows."
November 14, 2013