Roads
Can we eliminate death and serious injury from roadways?
After nine passengers died on the Red Line in 2009, we didn't throw up our hands and chalk it up to issues beyond our control. Instead, the region has seen serious debate and action
Photo by Kecko on Flickr.
Why, then, do we take a more defeatist attitude toward the safety of our roadways? Why do our elected officials insist that there's no way to free our roadways of death and serious injury, while sparing no expense or energy on air travel or rail safety measures?
A nation with one of the world's lowest rates of roadway death and injury offers a different vision. It should challenge us to ask some difficult questions and examine the expectations we have of our road system.
Sweden, long known for its excellent road safety record, has led the way in creating a new paradigm for addressing this persistent public health problem. In 1997, the Swedish Parliament adopted the "Vision Zero" policy, which sets a goal of reducing roadway fatalities and serious injuries to zero.
While there will continue to be crashes on Swedish roadways resulting in recoverable injury, the underlying philosophy of Vision Zero rests on an ethical understanding that death and lifelong suffering from severe injury are not acceptable byproducts of our transportation system.
We accept this ethical standard for our freight rail, mass transit and air travel systems but each day, our roadway system gets a pass on unnecessary tragedy. Most crashes resulting in death or serious injury, involving all types of road users, are caused not by willful negligence on the part of the road user. They often involve everyday people on roads that put them at unnecessary risk.
It doesn't have to be this way. A generation ago, we recognized the role of vehicle safety and created a vehicle-based safety culture focused on seat belts, air bags, and anti-lock brakes. The safety culture then broadened to include operator behavior, with a focus on drunk driving, road rage, and distracted driving. It's time to systematically include roadway design in our safety culture.
At a Montgomery County Council transportation subcommittee hearing last month, council member Marc Elrich argued that the number of roadway deaths could never be reduced to zero.
"People will die as long as they do stupid stuff," Erlich said. "You can't make this world so safe that no one can be harmed."
In a follow-up, Elrich aide Dale Tibbitts added, "Of course we wish to make environment safe for everyone," listing various pedestrian safety initiatives in the county. "Despite all these efforts," he argued, "if a driver, a pedestrian or a bicyclist acts negligently, the County cannot prevent every tragic incident." Tibbitts continued, "When the police report to us that a person dressed in dark clothing stepped out in Georgia Ave on a dark night and was struck by a car traveling 35-40 mph and was killed, that is beyond the scope of what the Council can legislate and fund."
The "Vision Zero" philosophy does not envision a magical world where nothing bad happens on our roadways. Crashes will continue to happen. Suicides and reckless behavior will always lead to tragedy. But there are thousands of deaths and serious injuries each year caused not by reckless behavior but by a system that is dangerous by design, where pedestrians have to walk unreasonable distances to a safe crossing along high-speed roadways through populated areas.
At present, road users are operating within a system that encourages speeding, especially along corridors such as Georgia Avenue. As council member Nancy Floreen noted at the same meeting, "We should give greater thought to our design standards. Who's winning the speed battle? Shouldn't we do all we can to allow the pedestrians more respect than our systems currently allow?" This philosophy balances responsibility on two parties: roadway users and roadway designers.
The defeatist attitude that death and serious injury will always happen on our streets has become the conventional wisdom for our roadways, but not for our railways, airways or transit systems. We wouldn't be complacent if thousands of Americans died each year on our nation's subways or airplanes, but that's exactly what happens on our roads.
When it comes to preventing death and serious injury, we too often focus on individual behavior and vehicle safety but ignore the crucial role of roadway design, which leads to one of the deadliest ingredients in any crash: speed. Road design changes, such as traffic calming, have proven effective at improving road safety.
Most roadway deaths and serious injuries are preventable. Why have we convinced ourselves that they are not?
Cross-posted at Struck in DC.
 | Stephen Miller lived in the District from 2008 to 2011 and is now a student at Pratt Institute's city and regional planning masters program.   |
Comments
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by SJE on Nov 16, 2010 3:00 pm • link • report
One comment though:
You say'Road design changes, such as traffic calming, have proven effective at improving road safety.'
But the traffic calming (which I'm assuming includes lowering of speeds) also means increasing the transit time from point A to point B. So, traffic calming may not always be the optimal solution. It really depends what a road's role is. If it is an arterial, then you don't want calm the traffic ... you might to instead calm the pedestrian use of it ... and the bicycles. Right?
Different goals require different solutions.
by Lance on Nov 16, 2010 3:00 pm • link • report
I am sure you can point to the factors that led to any single accident, and argue that it was preventable. But accidents in general, are not.
Your point is entirely academic. The flu is "preventable." We know what causes the flu. If nobody who had the flu ever came in contact with another person for the duration of their disease, it could be eliminated.
But an academic point is meaningless in the real world. We could never quarantine our environment (either literally or figuratively) to prevent the flu from spreading or to prevent people from, at in individual level, doing stupid things.
Every industry on earth constantly works to improve safety. Look at automobile designs today compared to 30 years ago. We have far more traffic controls. We have stricter drunk driving laws. We have many cities focusing on creating safer ways for pedestrians and cyclists to coexist with cars.
And car accident rates are at their lowest ever. How does all this lead you to the conclusion that we've "given up" on automobile safety? How has any other industry approached safety in any other way?
I bet that auto death rates have gone down a lot more than airline and train accident rates, too. You should probably look that up before concluding that we've "given up" but haven't elsewhere.
I really am wondering what you think we should be doing differently. Money is always an object, you know. You can't just say "we will not tolerate accidents" and not put a price tag on achieving that goal.
The Hoover Dam cost 700 million in today's dollars to build, and it was completed ahead of schedule. ll that gets you today is a baseball stadium a year late.
In 1931 a hundred people died building the Hoover Dam. I don't think anyone died building Nationals' Park.
Safety costs a lot of money. We have come a very long way since we began industrializing. The safety features that our vehicles use are often at the limits of our technology within any reasonable cost... and sometimes go beyond reasonable and into idiotic (like the bus loudspeakers). You can't look at this problem in black or white, it is not that simple.
by Jamie on Nov 16, 2010 3:02 pm • link • report
Only a matter of time.
by oboe on Nov 16, 2010 3:08 pm • link • report
So would you eliminate interstate travel? Lower all highways to 35 MPH? What effect would that have on commerce, quality of life? What cost?
Traffic deaths at lowest in 60 years
by Jamie on Nov 16, 2010 3:13 pm • link • report
Not quite. There are road designs -- for instance, modern roundabouts -- which slow speed down *AND* decrease travel times. Moreover, when we think about travel times, we should consider the mean and variance. I suspect that roads that result in greater number of accidents and increased severity associated with greater velocity can potentially increase mean travel times and increase the variance. That is, suppose you have a slower and safer road network that would increase travel times due to the direct effect of traveling slower. But by having fewer and less severe collisions we can reduce travel times and make travel time more predictable.
@Jamie ...
I recall a vein of research that determined most collisions are due to distraction or poor judgement (e.g., speeding relative to present conditions). Something like 80-90% is the number in my head; but my brain is like scambled eggs lately and I don't have a link handy. But I think that the body of research is based on looking at police reports as well as some studies that put cameras in cars and examining "extreme" events where extreme is determined by sensors. But the point here is that while these collisions are often accidents due to lack of intent, they are often quite avoidable with a little more effort and restaint.
That written, I completely concur that calling for zero deaths is really just a slogan instead of something we should realistically target from a cost/benefit analysis.
@Everyone ...
I think that the recent experience with Virginia levying high fines at repeat offenders is a signs that the layperson fails to see speeding, distraction, and casual carelessness as dangerous. In part, this is due to inate biases that underestimate the risk associated with driving and overestimate our ability to deal with it. Another part is that a driver's dangerous behavior is associated with bad outcomes for the driver and potentially other individuals. Consequently, there is a negative externality here that should be controlled by law enforcement/regulation. If you're like me and feel that the present state of affairs is too tolerant and accepting of vehicular deaths, we need to do a better job of convincing people that this is a real problem.
Now, we should make a careful study to show that greater enforcement/regulation is welfare improving before spending billions of dollars. But I think smaller steps that penalize aggressive driving, re-engineer particularly problematic intersections for greater safety and efficiency, and take advantage of automated enforcement are conservative relative to the amount of damage that semi-reckless driving causes.
I recommend the book Traffic by Vanderbuilt for an excellent overview of the research and topic.
by Gee on Nov 16, 2010 3:37 pm • link • report
High-speed interstate auto travel is indeed where using the safety features of individual vehicles is most effective and we can do debatably little to the external environment to reduce fatalities resulting from irrational behavior or "accidents."
But within other contexts, "traffic deaths" takes on a much broader definition to include all road users, motorist, cyclist and pedestrian alike. In these contexts, road design plays an enormous role in how people use the road, and therefore, how dangerous of an environment the road becomes. Just as if you have a small child in your household, you make different design decisions in terms of furniture, fixtures, safety mechanisms, etc., we must be more cognizant to include features on appropriate roads which make them safe for all users.
by Erik Weber on Nov 16, 2010 3:46 pm • link • report
I agree. Much like the flu, if you just acted sensibly you wouldn't pass it on.
But how do you deal with this problem? Nobody wants to get in an accident from the get go. I'd be all in favor of stricter licensing requirements, or whatever other ways we can think of to try to get people to be distracted less. I am not sure how much improvement you could really expect, though, and most people around here typically call for the opposite approach of draconian enforcement. Which really doesn't historically have much effect on safety. Since most accidents are not on purpose.
People seem to think the U.S. is especially bad. Is it?
The maximum speed limit in Sweden is 120 kph, about 74 MPH. The max in the US is 80 and I've only ever seen that in Texas, everywhere around here, and where there's any sort of appreciable traffic, it's 65.
So I guess you can't fault the speed limit.
Now, Sweden has the lowest number of traffic fatalities per capita, but per VMT, they're almost identical to the US according to this.
And our rate, 9.4, is among the very lowest of all countries showing data.
Well guess what? We drive more than they do. Our country is also totally different, orders of magnitude larger, and it would cost us the entire GNP for ten years to get train coverage anywhere close to that possible in countries that have a lot higher population density than we do in order to change that in any appreciable way.
We're working on it, but this kind of discussion does not appreciate reality.
by Jamie on Nov 16, 2010 3:46 pm • link • report
by Erik Weber on Nov 16, 2010 3:53 pm • link • report
by Erik Weber on Nov 16, 2010 3:56 pm • link • report
Why is that zero death thing just a slogan? It is not when talking about airline safety, terrorism, or quite frankly toys. How does the cost/benefit analysis from the aftermath of 9/11 compare to the cost/benefit analysis of trying to prevent 40k annual traffic deaths?
by Jasper on Nov 16, 2010 4:16 pm • link • report
by tim h on Nov 16, 2010 4:19 pm • link • report
Then perhaps that is where the low-hanging fruit is: not on highways, not in city streets.
Although, when you do live in the country, you drive A LOT on rural non-divided roads.
This entire post is suffering from "sidewalk perspective".
by charlie on Nov 16, 2010 4:29 pm • link • report
by Fritz on Nov 16, 2010 4:48 pm • link • report
i think this 'more defeatist' line is not wholly appropriate/accurate when applied to 'we'. but other than that, +1/right on/excellent/yes/etc. :)
i might rather go with 'less confident' or 'less strident' descriptive phrase, but actually, now, these probably don't even work anymore. i feel like the game has already changed, momentum has already shifted -- there will continue to be a bloodbath for the next several years, at least, as we work to 'right the ship' -- which includes passing all sorts of 'strict liability' types of laws (which takes time), but it's all moving in the right direction -- no defeatism anymore.
if you wrote that phrase maybe 5 or 10 years ago, then maybe it'd be a bit more accurate, but now there's a full-on press to get safer conditions for walkers and bikers, at least, and even drivers to a certain extent. The head of the Federal DOT is blogging and speaking in public, and often, about reducing traffic fatalities, etc. It's now a full-on social movement with official backing, even if many corporations will continue to resist. So, do corporations and many of the official media outlets that depend on revenue from those (motor) corporations (like newspapers, local and national television stations/programs, etc.) take a defeatist attitude? Maybe - but 'they' are not 'we'.
I do like the '20 is Plenty' campaign, which NYC and/or Hoboken is trying out right now, I believe, and maybe SF soon, and probably a bunch of other US cities thinking about it. Berkeley is about to re-start calming their neighborhood streets. Palo Alto was getting some gruff recently, I think, for also having quit the 'bike-friendly' game 30 years ago -- after they helped to start it. I'm pretty sure Portland hosted one of the 'Vision Zero' folks a few months ago, and I know Portland is going to eventually take that point of view seriously, if they're not already. anytime a columnist writes an anti-walk/anti-bike column, s/he hears about it from one or more or many walk/bike advocates. and there seems to be a growing moral outrage about traffic fatalities, especially when stories like this and this pop up.
I'm not sure what the other objections are about -- they don't make any sense to me.
Couple of side notes:
1) as an almost full-time driver these days (most of the people i now hang with/around/etc. are drivers), i can say with confidence that drunken and distracted driving is rampant/pervasive, and i'm not sure i know the best way to stop it except starting with stronger/harsher/better/more-frequent enforcement. use revenues from the fines to fund new enforcement positions, and
2) Atrios has noted this repeatedly -- if you continue to build bars that can only be driven to, we'll continue to experience all the horrors of drunken driving. it's completely predictable, and we should start thinking about this more -- like, perhaps allowing more local/neighborhood bars, so people don't have to drive to drink, etc.
3) 'security theater' is a _great_ term -- i only wish i had that type of term/phrase to replace 'road diet'.
by Peter Smith on Nov 16, 2010 5:10 pm • link • report
In short, things that we can do to reduce injuries fatalities will suffer from diminishing returns like anything else. At some point, more effort towards road safety will be too costly to pursue relative to other worthwhile goals.
by Gee on Nov 16, 2010 6:34 pm • link • report
And how is that different in food safety, OSHA, pharmaceutical safety and the war on terror?
by Jasper on Nov 16, 2010 7:05 pm • link • report
I can only speak for cyclists. In the last 5 years
Constance Holden was killed at 12th and New York Ave NW
Ian Wolfe was killed at 15th and Maine, SW
Alice Swanson was killed at 20th and R, NW
An unknown cyclist was killed at 14th and K NW
There was one other cyclist who died on Southern Ave SE.
by David C on Nov 16, 2010 8:35 pm • link • report
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/16/AR2010111603830.html?hpid=dynamiclead
(unfortunately the WaPo links to all kinds of stuff, but not the actual report)
by Jasper on Nov 17, 2010 8:34 am • link • report
You want to save lives? Work on booze and belts. Then work on speeding and distracted driving. Then work on improving this joke of a driver licensing system we've got. (When was the last time your skills were checked? I've lived in 4 states in 8 years and I have been retested once.) Finally, stop designing local roads like they are segments of the Beltway.
Except for that last point about road design, we've understood all these risk factors for years... but most states have shied away from being tough on drivers. The WashPost did a interesting analysis about states and traffic safety:
http://national.news21.com/2010-2/states-resist-highway-safety-laws-ntsb
by bikermark on Nov 17, 2010 9:10 am • link • report
"The United States is far behind other developed countries when it comes to pursuing strategies that reduce traffic fatalities. Since 1995, France has cut deaths by 52 percent, Great Britain by 38 percent and Australia by 25 percent. In the United States, they've dropped by 19 percent."
Despite another commenter's statement that "Traffic deaths at lowest in 60 years" it's important to think how much lower they could be.
by Matt Malinowski on Nov 17, 2010 10:18 am • link • report
Do what you like on limited access highways (i.e. interstates). But I reject your distinction between "residential/neighborhood roads" and "arterial roads". Connecticut Ave is a residential neighborhood road. So is Wisconsin Ave. So is Massachusetts Ave.
I think it's a large part of the problem that we mentally partition things in such a way that the suburban cul-de-sacs of Centerville are "safe havens", but that someone who lives a block off of Constitution Ave in NE deserves whatever they get when they try to cross the street.
After all, that's an "arterial" not a "residential street."
As far as lowering the speed limit on I-95 to 30 mph, don't be silly. I would see the speed limit in all of DC lowered to 25 on major roads, and 20 for everything else. That's completely reasonable, and establishes the proper precedent that roads in the city are for every mode of transport.
And just to build on David C's point, there are opportunity costs to maintaining every street in DC as a raceway for motor vehicles. You suppress pedestrian traffic; you suppress cycling; you degrade the common areas of the city. In any case, there's a bit of demographic self-sorting going on. Folks who love to sit in traffic are choosing to live in the 'burbs, and folks who like to walk, or ride bikes are flocking to the cities.
In ten years the kind of speed limits and traffic control measures I mentioned are going to be completely uncontroversial within DC. Probably never happen in the suburbs since driving is such a non-negotiable part of suburban life, but these measures will simply make the city *more* attractive to the type of folks who continue to flock here.
After all, the more DC voters who end up on those red CaBi bikes, the more unpalatable a stream of cars breaking the (already excessive) speed limit becomes.
by oboe on Nov 17, 2010 10:18 am • link • report
The solution is clear: Ban cars on city roads. Except for car pools. And buses. And electric cars. And taxis. And emergency vehicles. And government vehicles. And some cars for personal emergencies. And ZipCars. And food trucks.
Far to radical, you bomb-thrower. As a sensible centrist, I propose requiring speed limiters (set to 15 mph) on all motorized non-emergency vehicles operated within the city limits. It'll be tied in to a GPS, so that once you're over the border, you can go as fast as you like.
by oboe on Nov 17, 2010 10:22 am • link • report
by oboe on Nov 17, 2010 10:25 am • link • report
If liability insurance properly compensated the victims of these problems, insurance premiums would skyrocket, as they should. If you are 18 years old, already have a history of reckless driving, drive a vehicle classified as a heavy-duty truck, and primarily travel on poorly designed roads, perhaps the cost of liability insurance should prevent you from getting behind the wheel. That way, only the super-rich would have the right to recklessly operate 6-ton trucks on city streets while talking on the phone and drinking a late, instead of everyone having that right. This is America after all.
by Aaron Kuehn on Nov 17, 2010 2:55 pm • link • report
I wonder if GEICO erecting there headquarters on the 1959 Northwest Freeway right of way was a polictial factor.
http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2006/12/1959-northwest-freeway.html
by Douglas A. Willinger on Nov 17, 2010 3:04 pm • link • report
Not for pedestrians and cyclists and residents next to them.
by Aaron Kuehn on Nov 17, 2010 3:48 pm • link • report
Also, places without freeways that need them, such as NYC's Canal Street have health problems comparable to those that do (with such freeways belong in tunnel structures with filtration).
by Douglas A. Willinger on Nov 17, 2010 5:33 pm • link • report
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