Safety
Basics
Safety Group Walks Back Advice to Let Risky Teens Drive Megacars
A top safety organization is recommending that parents put their teen drivers in larger cars that are safer for occupants but more lethal for pedestrians and cyclists — raising the issue of why we are enlisting children in the SUV arms race rather than making cars smaller and safer for everyone.
October 25, 2022
Opinion: Cars Do More Damage to Business Districts Than Local Officials Admit
The disproportionate number of crashes caused by unlicensed drivers defeat the business-friendly and safety purpose of complete streets, road diets, curb extensions, and other traffic-calming elements to encourage bike- and pedestrian-safe main streets.
October 19, 2022
Study: Some Roundabout Designs Slash Injury Crashes Up to 85%
An Indiana city famous for roundabouts was able to cut injury-causing traffic crashes by as much as 84 percent at intersections outfitted with the circular design, a new study finds.
September 21, 2022
Driving is the New Smoking: Lessons From America’s Public Health Victory Over Tobacco
Smoking, once a celebrated totem of American culture, is increasingly an ostracized habit of the marginal few. Getting there, though, took deliberate vision, coordinated efforts, and persistent policy trial and error over decades — and those efforts reveal a partial roadmap for breaking our country’s similarly dangerous addiction to cars.
September 2, 2022
Stop Sign Bill Is Dead
Author Boerner Horvath pulled A.B. 1713 because it was clear that Newsom planned to veto it
August 31, 2022
Could California (Finally) Get That Stop-as-Yield Law?
California bike riders are this close to getting the right to treat stop signs as yield signs.
August 23, 2022
Education, infrastructure, and holding drivers accountable > bike helmets for cyclist safety
Stopping drivers from killing cyclists shouldn't be a matter of good fortune and a couple inches of Styrofoam and plastic. We need education, infrastructure, and laws to prevent crashes from happening in the first place.
July 26, 2022
Study: SUVs Are Indeed Death Machines for Children and Black Road Users
Maybe the 354th story with this headline will finally change some minds — or some federal regulations.
July 7, 2022
Pickups and SUVs are driving the pedestrian death epidemic. But the tide may be turning.
While big vehicles are safer for people on the inside, they're more deadly for those on the outside. But there's a movement to require safer automobile designs and create disincentives to owning oversized vehicles.
June 8, 2022
Newly Confirmed Head of Federal Vehicle Safety Agency Has His Work Cut Out For Him
As the nation hurtles towards a brave new world of autonomous and electric vehicles, the NHTSA's work will affect everyone.
May 27, 2022