Crashes are not Accidents
Has Progress on Travel Safety Run Off the Road?
Changing technology and rebuilding infrastructure to improve road safety are long-term strategies. How can enforcement and interventions that influence driver behavior make a difference in reducing traffic deaths sooner?
Opinion: U.S. Must Prioritize Safety for Non-Drivers
The rise in cyclist and pedestrian deaths in the United States points to preventable failures in road design and regulations.
Why 'Accidents' Are Not Inevitable
A new book argues that accidental deaths, from car crashes to industrial accidents, are a result of a 'rapacious' capitalist system that prioritizes profits over people.
Illinois Law Mandates Safety Studies at Fatal Intersections
Newly adopted legislation mandates a traffic study for all pedestrian fatalities and consideration of alternate road design options.
Living (and Dying) with COVID: How Many Deaths are Acceptable?
Political analyst Philip Bump asks the "unstated, unpleasant question" that the U.S. has struggled with since the inception of the pandemic, more relevant now with the widespread availability of vaccines that are effective at preventing most deaths.
Tiger Woods Crash: Blame the Road, Not the Driver, Say Authorities
"Purely an accident" is how the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department characterized the one-person, single-vehicle rollover crash that severely injured golfing celebrity Tiger Woods on Feb. 23 while driving on the Palos Verdes Peninsula.
An American Lockdown
Words matter. Road safety advocates know that "crashes are not accidents." Similarly, calling coronavirus restrictions "lockdowns," fails to distinguish the severity among public health orders. On January 6, America experienced a true lockdown.
Nation's Top Safety Board Recommends Protected Bike Lanes
The NTSB chair issued a stark warning on Nov. 5: "If we do not improve roadway infrastructure for bicyclists, bicyclists will die who otherwise would not," stated Robert Sumwalt in introducing their first report in 47 years devoted to bike safety.
Horrific Cyclist's Death in Brooklyn Prompts Calls for New Thinking on Cars
José Alzorriz was killed while waiting on a bike at a red light. An SUV, T-boned by a red light-runner, literally flew into him.
Studies on Media Coverage of Bike and Pedestrian Crashes Reveal Bias
Road safety advocates, particularly those who promote walking and biking, have long understood the importance of language, such as using "crash" rather than "accident." Two new media studies shed more light on bias in media coverage of crashes.
A Deadly Crash Is an Accident Because it Isn't Terrorism
Cable news networks interrupted broadcasts on Thursday morning with breaking news: a vehicle had just driven three block on the sidewalks in Times Square, New York, resulting in massive casualties. Anchors asked, "Was it terrorism or an accident?"
Horrific School Bus Crash in Chattanooga Results In Five Counts of Vehicular Homicide
The driver has been arrested and charged with the deaths of five children who died at the scene of the one-vehicle crash in which the bus slammed into a tree on Monday afternoon. The National Transportation Safety Board is on the scene.
The Critical Importance of Bicycle Infrastructure to Public Health
The lead editorial in the December issue of American Journal of Public Health provides the introduction for two research papers on the relationship between bicycling safety and infrastructure expansion in Boston and Vision Zero in U.S. and Sweden.
Why the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Doesn't Use 'Accidents'
Call them crashes, collisions, even incidents, just don't call them 'accidents,' emphatically states Mark R. Rosekind, Ph.D., Administrator for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the nation's premier traffic safety agency.
It's not Zero, But Traffic Deaths Decreased Last Year in New York City
Traffic deaths dropped by 27 in 2015 to 230, a reduction of over 10 percent from 2014. Pedestrian deaths decreased only slightly. Bicyclists fared better: deaths dropped by 30 percent.
Does it Matter if We Call Crashes 'Accidents'?
Safety experts, like NHTSA, and safety advocates, like bicycle and pedestrian organizations, have replaced the commonly used "accident" with "crash" or similar nouns. Kevin Drum of Mother Jones asks if it really makes a difference.
Another Scary Example of Driving with Impunity
Seattle Bike Blogger Tom Fucoloro directed his ire at the Bellevue, Washington police treatment of a particularly horrendous pedal misapplication crash by a new driver that came within inches of hitting a nine-month old baby asleep in a crib.
Urban Design for Planners 1: Software Tools
This six-course series explores essential urban design concepts using open source software and equips planners with the tools they need to participate fully in the urban design process.
Planning for Universal Design
Learn the tools for implementing Universal Design in planning regulations.
Economic & Planning Systems, Inc.
UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies
Mpact (formerly Rail~Volution)
Chaddick Institute at DePaul University
City of Piedmont, CA
Great Falls Development Authority, Inc.
HUDs Office of Policy Development and Research
