‘So many deaths’: Lawmakers consider lower speed limits, safer roads

The party was coming to an end. Her young hosts, María Rivas Cruz and her fiancé, Raymond Olivares, had accompanied friends to their car to say goodbye. As the couple crossed a four-lane main road to return to the home they had just purchased, Rivas Cruz and Olivares were struck by a car fleeing an illegal street race. The driver was going 70 in a 40 mph zone.

Despite years of advocating for a two-lane road, lower speed limits, safety islands and stronger crosswalks, residents say the county has done little to fighting speeding in this unincorporated pocket of southeast Los Angeles. Since 2012, this half-mile stretch of Avalon Boulevard has seen 396 crashes, resulting in 170 injuries and three deaths.

Olivares, 27, a civil engineer for the city of Los Angeles, became the fourth fatality when he was thrown across the street, hit by a second car and killed instantly. Rivas Cruz was taken to the hospital, where she remained in a coma for two weeks. Once awake, the primary school teacher underwent a series of reconstructive surgeries to repair her arm, jaw and legs.

Following the February 2023 accident, the county installed steel protection posts in the middle of the street. But residents, who sought a central platform bulkhead and speed cameras, said that was not enough.

“It’s just a bandage on a cut.” It’s supposed to solve it, but it doesn’t, and that’s what hurts,” said Rivas Cruz, who, now 28, walks with a cane and lives with pain. chronicles. “I fall asleep and I’m like, ‘It’s just a dream, it’s just a dream.’ And that’s not the case.

The nation’s highway system spans 6 million miles and is governed by a patchwork of federal, state and local jurisdictions that often operate in isolation, making systemic change difficult and costly. But as the number of pedestrian deaths is the highest in decades, localities are pushing for control of how speed limits are set and for more accountability in road design. This spring, New York and Michigan passed laws allowing local jurisdictions to lower speed limits. In Los Angeles, voters approved a measure that forces the city to act on its own safety improvement plan, requiring the car-loving metropolis to redesign streets, add bike lanes and protect cyclists, commuters public transport and pedestrians.

There is, however, much political resistance to controlling speeding. At the California Statehouse, Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) proposed requiring GPS-equipped smart devices in new cars and trucks to prevent speeding. But after pushback, the state lawmaker watered down his bill requiring all vehicles sold in the state starting in 2032 to be equipped only with warning systems that alert drivers when they exceed the limit. speed of more than 16 km/h.

Although the Biden administration is championing Vision Zero – its commitment to zero traffic fatalities – and injecting more than $20 billion in funding for transportation safety programs through the Infrastructure Investment Act and jobs, road safety advocates and some lawmakers say the country is still far from reaching its goal. make streets and vehicles safer or slow down drivers.

“We are not demonstrating the political will to use the proven security tools that exist,” said Leah Shahum, founder of Vision Zero Network, a nonprofit that advances Vision Zero in communities across the country.

Always a crisis

The need for safer roads has become urgent during the COVID-19 pandemic. Deaths increased even as stay-at-home mandates emptied the streets. In 2022, more than 42,500 people died on U.S. roads and at least 7,522 pedestrians were fatally struck, the highest number of pedestrian deaths in more than four decades.

Experts cite several reasons to explain the decline in road safety. During lockdowns, reckless driving increased while traffic enforcement decreased. SUVs and trucks have become bigger and heavier, therefore more deadly when they hit a pedestrian. Other factors persist as streets remain wide to accommodate vehicles and, in some states, speed limits have gradually increased.

Early estimates of motor vehicle deaths show a slight decrease between 2022 and 2023, but the number of pedestrian deaths remains significantly higher than pre-pandemic figures. “This is an encouraging start, but the numbers still constitute a crisis,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg wrote in February about traffic deaths.

The Biden administration has dedicated $15.6 billion for highway safety through 2026 and $5 billion in local grants to prevent traffic deaths and injuries. Under the U.S. Department of Transportation’s new “vulnerable road user” rule, states with 15 percent or more deaths involving pedestrians, cyclists, or motorcyclists of all traffic deaths must match federal dollars in their spending on security improvements.

Highway safety advocates argue the federal government missed an opportunity to eliminate outdated speed limit standards when it revised traffic guidelines last year. The agency could have removed guidelines recommending setting speed limits at or below the speed at which 85 percent of drivers travel on uncongested roads. Critics say the so-called 85th percentile rule encourages traffic engineers to set speed limits at levels dangerous to pedestrians.

But the Federal Highway Administration wrote in a statement that although the 85th percentile is the typical method, engineers rarely rely on that rule alone. He also noted that states and some local agencies have their own criteria for setting speed limits.

In response, local efforts to reduce speeding have sprouted across communities. In April, Michigan passed a law giving local governments the authority to round down when setting speed limits.

And after four years of lobbying, New York State passed Sammy’s Law, named after 12-year-old Sammy Cohen Eckstein, who was killed by a driver in Brooklyn in 2013. The law, which takes effect in June, allows New York City to lower its speed limits to 20 mph in designated areas.

“With this legislation, I hope we can know more children’s names because of their accomplishments, their personalities and their spirits, not their final moments,” said Sammy’s mother, Amy Cohen.

Lobbying for Pedestrian Safety

Advocates would also like the federal government to consider pedestrian safety on the five-star vehicle safety scale. However, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration proposed a separate pass/fail test that would be posted only on the agency’s website, not on labels consumers would see at the dealership.

Automakers like BMW have questioned the effectiveness of a program testing pedestrian protection in vehicles, arguing that in European countries that have adopted such regulations, it was unclear whether it led to fewer deaths and injured. According to the campaign finance site Open Secrets, automakers spent about $49 million on lobbying in 2023, compared to the $2.2 million spent by road and auto safety advocates.

“The federal government has the most leverage when it comes to requiring improved vehicle safety design,” said Wiener, the California state lawmaker.

Although Wiener modified his proposal to restrict speeding, he proposed companion legislation that would require Caltrans, the state transportation agency, to make improvements such as adding pedestrian crossings and road extensions. sidewalks on state-owned surface streets to better serve pedestrians, cyclists and transit users. .

When this bill was heard in committee, opponents, including engineering firms and contractors, warned that it would remove flexibility and hinder the state’s ability to provide a safe and efficient transportation system. Lawmakers have until August 31 to act on his bills.

In Los Angeles, hope for change arose in March when voters passed Measure HLA, which requires the city to invest $3.1 billion in traffic safety over the next decade. Rivas Cruz’s home, however, is eight blocks outside the municipal initiative’s jurisdiction.

It’s been more than a year since the accident, but Rivas Cruz finds memories everywhere: in the mirror, when she looks at the scars left on her face after several surgeries. When she walks down the street, she still lacks the infrastructure that would have protected her and Raymond.

Stories of pedestrians being killed in this popular Latino neighborhood are all too common, Rivas Cruz said. In September, she attended a memorial service for a 14-year-old killed by a reckless driver.

“There are so many deaths,” the Los Angeles Unified School District teacher said from her mother’s living room one spring afternoon. “The reps let us down. Raymond and I were giving back to the community. He was a civil engineer working for the city and I am a professor at LAUSD. Where is our help?

This article was produced by KFF Health News, which publishes California Healthline, an independent editorial arm of the California Health Care Foundation. KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism on health issues and is one of KFF’s primary operating programs, an independent source of health policy research, polling and journalism. Learn more about KFF at kff.org.

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