Yesterday's front page celebration of muscle cars might have been an opportunity to think more about intersections with toxic masculinity, roadway safety, and all our autoism.
Alas, they remained disconnected.
Earlier this week the US Department of Transportation announced a new National Roadway Safety Strategy, and just as a loose framework, it could give us a better way to talk not just about new regulation and funding, but also to understand our autoism and to interpret and analyze crashes locally. It could be productive across several kinds of conversation.
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| US DOT, via Twitter |
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| "to talk about safety" - via Twitter |
From the Department of Transportation:
The National Roadway Safety Strategy will advance safety and save lives through the Safe System approach which includes:
- Safer People
- Safer Roads
- Safer Vehicles
- Safer Speeds
- Post-Crash Care
As we saw just a few days ago, a lot of our reporting focuses just on the first element, on bad actors and their bad choices.
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| Focus on a bad actor |
But certainly three of the other factors contribute (probably not a problem with post-crash care), and sometimes a driver who kills a person is driving more or less lawfully and cannot be plausibly described as a bad actor. Nevertheless, the crash was likely preventable and is not merely an "accident."
See a couple of recent pieces on our general pattern of resolving cause to human error:
- At Streetsblog, "The 94% Error: We Need to Understand the True Cause of Crashes"
- At the Atlantic, "The Deadly Myth That Human Error Causes Most Car Crashes"
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| "points to lower speed limits" - as reported here |
Even though the story about the National Roadway Safety Strategy was a little buried, picked up with a generic wire story earlier in the week, it could provide a framework for better reporting on cars, traffic violence, speed, and safety. Even with ways we need to reduce driving and emissions for climate.
But we also need to start making connections with other expressions of our autoism. An uncritical celebration of muscle cars, deadly instruments for speed and power, even framed by nostalgia and fund-raising for worthy causes, does not help.
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| "high-performance" or dangerous? |
See also in more detail:
- At Bikeportland, "America has a new strategy to end traffic violence. And it’s pretty good"
- An interview at Slate, "Traffic Deaths Are Way Up. What’s Pete Buttigieg Going to Do About It?"
- At Streetsblog, "What’s In the Groundbreaking New USDOT Safety Strategy — and What’s Missing"
5 comments:
Speaking of safety, this is a somewhat condensed version of a message I sent to my city Councilor last summe:
The intersection of Liberty and Union Streets is not safe for people on Union Street trying to cross Liberty. Liberty carries fast-moving, often heavy traffic. There is no traffic control on Liberty Street - no traffic light, no stop sign, no pedestrian signal, no crosswalk marked on the pavement. There are stop signs on Union Street along with signs that say: Cross Traffic Does Not Stop. There are signs with the figure of a pedestrian and an arrow, but no crosswalk markings. (I have photos of this.)
During construction of the new police station a great deal of time, money and effort was expended to reconfigure the section of Liberty St. NE between Division and Marion Streets to make it two-way, giving easier vehicle access to the Marion Street Bridge. New traffic patterns were created and new signals were installed at Division and Marion. But nothing was done to improve safety on Union Street.
Union Street is designated to become a family friendly bikeway. This has been part of the city's plan for years and it will be more years before construction can begin. New signals at Union andLiberty are part of the plan. Given this, it would have made sense to install the signals while Liberty was reconfigured for the new police station, but that wasn't done.
From the Oregonian: "Portland’s Transportation Bureau said Wednesday that seven in 10 pedestrians killed in traffic crashes last year were experiencing homelessness at the time."
This was the first year that Portland has tracked the numbers.
Just something to keep in mind when speculating about cause and effect and considering ways to reduce harm.
It is likely that many of the unnamed and unidentified killed in traffic violence here were also experiencing homelessness. (Obliquely referenced here.)
One way to check the validity of inferences about street safety is to substitute "small child" or "elderly person" for "person experiencing homelessness." Conditions that are unsafe for children and seniors, as well as for people camping, even those with untreated mental illness, cannot be blamed simply on campers and camping.
Our streets should be safe for all people, including children, seniors, and people camping or even wandering.
This is another reason for widespread reductions in speed.
Here is a response that might be relevant as reported in Willamette Week -
https://www.wweek.com/news/city/2022/02/04/housing-and-transportation-advocates-rebuke-mayor-ted-wheeler-for-upcoming-ban-on-camping-along-dangerous-roadways/
As the Street Trust said, "Safe Streets, not Sweeps."
The unsafe intersection at Liberty and Union NE, that I mentioned in a previous comment here, is between two homeless services providers: Arches at Commercial and Union;and HOAP on Church St. just north of Union. Arches is across Union from a large homeless camp in Marion Sq. Park.
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