Who is responsible for street safety?

In the United States, the prevailing wisdom is that individual’s behaviors, such as speeding, drunk driving, not wearing a seat belt, running a stop sign, and not wearing a helmet, are the root causes of car crashes, severe injuries and deaths.  

Helmets are often cited to be essential for bike safety.  However, in the Netherlands, where cycling is very popular and nearly nobody wears a helmet, the death rate is about 25% that of the US - even though over 50% of US bikers wear helmets.  Clearly, there is something other than helmets in the Netherlands that is doing a much better job of keeping cyclists safe. 

Another factor often cited is driver behavior.  During the pandemic, there was a sharp increase in road deaths, which has been commonly attributed to an increase in unsafe driving habits.  Take this recent article:

The rising fatalities [during the pandemic] seemed to be caused by what University of Utah cognitive neuroscientist David Strayer, PhD, calls the “four horsemen of death.” Together, they are speed, impairment, distraction, and fatigue, the human foibles behind more than 90% of vehicle crashes. All, experts say, can be worsened by relentless cycles of pandemic stress.

“People’s brains are not perceiving information and processing emotion in the way that they did prior to the pandemic,” said Kira Mauseth, PhD, a clinical psychologist at Seattle University who studies disaster behavioral health. “People might be a little bit more impulsive, they’re a little bit less regulated, they might not be considering consequences.” -https://www.apa.org/monitor/2022/06/feature-traffic-safety

So, is that really true?  Did drivers, pedestrians and cyclists just get more distracted and reckless during the pandemic?  Or is there another possible explanation?

In his recent book “Confessions of a Recovering Engineer,” Chuck Marohn, a traffic planner and engineer, lays out a different theory.  During the pandemic, traffic volumes decreased, which created conditions for cars to drive faster.

With the virus-induced drop in traffic volume, what is being revealed is the incredible level of overengineering and unsafe design that occurs throughout our entire transportation system.  Remove the traffic congestion that routinely thwarts high speed and drivers naturally feel empowered to utilize the full capabilities that have been engineered for them.  Speed goes up, and so does the rate of fatalities.  It is not that more people are driving without seatbelts or choosing to drive impaired by drugs or alcohol.  Those people have always been there.  There is not reason to even suspect that the rate of them has gone up, that suddenly people have opted for riskier behavior.  It is just that traffic congestion is no longer there to get in their way (p 117).

Drivers, cyclists and pedestrians are human, and therefore are fallible creatures. We did not evolve to travel at the speeds, or with the deadly weight, that cars afford.  In his book, Marohn argues that the way streets are designed in the United States is setting drivers up to fail.  “It is a shockingly common experience across North America to have a street designed to accommodate speeds of 60 miles per hour, traffic flow at 45 miles per hour, and have the legal speed limit designated as 30 miles per hour.”  Look around your town, and you are likely to find some of these streets for yourself. 

The author explains that driving is often a subconscious task, and the level of decision-making shifts from conscious to subconscious, depending on how risky we perceive the street conditions to be.  For example, in a busy parking lot, we are going to pay more attention to our surroundings and drive slower, as opposed to an empty highway.  The emptiness of the highway signals to our subconscious brains a lower level of risk. Thus, it feels safer to drive faster.

Imagine driving a car fast down this road:

Photo by Pierre Jeanneret on Unsplash

Now, imagine driving the same car fast down this alley:

Photo by Sigmund on Unsplash

The design elements of these streets dictate to our minds how fast it feels comfortable to drive - or even what is physically possible to drive. A reckless drunk driver would be prevented from zooming down this alley, simply because of the obstacles in the path.

In general, straight, wide, empty roads encourage higher speeds.  Complex, winding, narrow, obstacle laden paths encourage more driver concentration and slower speeds.

What kind of street design would you like in your neighborhood?

Why Safety Must Be Paramount

It seems pretty obvious that safety should be the top priority in street design.  However, it’s also pretty self-evident that safety for all - cyclists, pedestrians, and drivers - has not been the primary goal of street design in many places.  Instead, traffic flows and driver convenience have been prioritized above safety and accessibility for pedestrians and cyclists. Go and look for yourself at the streets in your neighborhood. This is not to place blame on particular individuals, but rather to bring awareness to the prevailing paradigm. 

A lack of street safety has a self-enforcing feedback loop.  If the streets do not feel safe to walk or cycle in, people will choose to drive, which then creates demand for more driving infrastructure.  I want to emphasize that many people do not have the option to drive, and are forced to navigate streets that were not designed for them. Furthermore, many others wish that they had the option to safely walk or cycle more often.  A survey found that 53% of American adults want to bike more, and 60% of them are worried about being hit by a motor vehicle in their area.

Safety Alone is Not Enough

I have the perfect solution to the problem of safety: just keep everyone inside.  If nobody ever ventured out of the house, then the risk of a car crash would be zero.  And, in fact, that is already partially the reality of our lives.  Think about how common it was for children to play in the streets in the 1950’s and earlier.  Now, it’s rare to see children playing in the streets; actually, it would be a real cause for concern.  We have sacrificed accessibility and independence in the name of safety.  Since the streets aren’t safe to play in, they become inaccessible.  This also holds true for walking, biking, wheelchair and mobility aide use in areas without safe and accessible street design.

Both safety and accessibility are essential for streets to function well for the people that live, work and play in them.

Safety Is the Answer

If we want to reduce the number of cars on the road and drastically reduce our emissions by 2030 in order to keep global warming under 1.5 C, we need to quickly ramp up cycling, walking, rolling and transit infrastructure.  In order to make that possible, safety must become the number one priority on our streets, followed closely by accessibility.  

Driver, cyclist and pedestrian safety education is absolutely important.  We also need to fix our road designs to slow down cars on our streets, and provide good alternatives for people who can’t, shouldn’t, or just don’t want to drive.

We must, as a culture, stop prioritizing driver convenience and car-centric design over safe, accessible, livable streets.  We must focus on creating the environment that we want to live in, a place which is compatible with human life - a platform for a thriving community.

One idea is to think of greater power coming with greater responsibility. Here’s an illustration. The more potentially destructive your vehicle, the greater responsibility you have to protect those who are as much or more vulnerable than you.

Many Kingston and Ulster County citizens have been doing great work to make our streets safer for pedestrians and cyclists; it’s an exciting time to live here and I’m grateful for all the efforts being made.  At the same time, the deaths of three cyclists in one year have highlighted the fact that we have a lot of work to do. And we need to push those with power to reject the status quo, and act with a sense of urgency.