The pedestrian safety crisis has been worsening in Washington State and across the United States, even as most other industrialized nations have taken strides to reduce their traffic fatality rate in recent years. Emily Badger at the New York Times recently did a feature on this troubling phenomenon which provided some extra focus on the topic. On Tuesday, our transportation reporter and senior editor Ryan Packer was on KUOW’s Soundside program to break down the trend along with Yonah Freemark, a researcher with the DC-based think tank Urban Institute.
The traffic safety crisis has many causes, and on nearly all fronts American governments are falling short of their global peers on interventions. The proof is in the data. Nearly 43,000 people died on American roads in 2021 according to official estimates. Among the 37 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) nations, the United States has had the highest rate of road deaths per capita since 2017.
“We’re continuing to see a big increase in the number of fatal and serious crashes on the roads in Washington,” Packer told Soundside host Libby Denkmann. “In recent years, 86% of people walking and biking who’ve been killed in Washington, have been killed on streets with a 30 mile per hour posted speed or higher.”
The number of pedestrians involved in fatal crashes has been at the heart of Washington’s spike in overall traffic deaths. Last year, the state saw nearly 150 people walking lose their lives on our streets, a 31.8% increase in one year and the highest figure seen in at least several decades. That trend is not showing any signs of slowing in 2022.
Many American jurisdictions, including Seattle, Bellevue, and Washington State, have set “Vision Zero” goals of eliminating traffic fatalities and serious injuries by 2030, following in the footsteps of a pioneering campaign in Sweden that greatly reduced traffic fatalities through design interventions. Unfortunately, American cities, in contrast, have made far less progress in actually achieving their Vision Zero goals, and have seen road fatalities trend up in recent years.
The pandemic helped accelerate safety progress in many nations, but the United States was again the exception, with the road fatality rate spiking during the pandemic, leading to an increase in fatalities even as vehicles miles traveled declined due to work-from-home provisions.
Check out the episode on your preferred podcast service or listen below.
