Road Carnage Summary Still Looks Away from our Full Autoism

The front page summary and partial analysis of our road carnage in 2024 might be a directional improvement on the usual coverage.

Front page, with ad for deadly machine also

Comments from Police emphasize speed and the responsibility of drivers more perhaps than usual. But they also fall back into the exonerative voice, erasing the driver, one time mentioning "personal driving behavior," another time erasing the driver in "single vehicles driving poorly." They never mention road design.

Upkes said some of the summer crashes involved speeding and erratic driving, which he attributed to "summertime feelings," while a milder winter has meant fewer crashes caused by inclement weather.

Wide roads induce "summertime feelings"! Streets could be designed to make erratic driving more difficult and less likely.

Police on speed, but also with the exonerative voice

It is former Councilor Virginia Stapleton who has the strongest, most accurate statement. "The No. 1 thing we know is that speed kills." Her statement isn't just about speeding, but also includes lawful speeds, even though the piece doesn't draw that out. Her statement includes the tension between our current paradigm for "congestion relief" and a new paradigm for traffic safety.

Former Councilor Stapleton on speed

At lawful, posted speeds of 40 or 50 miles per hour, crashes are still fatal. We should always remember a person at lawful speed of 40 miles per hour killed Selma Pierce on an evening walk near her home in West Salem. No citations were issued.

(2020)

Despite their indispensable ongoing coverage of Federal Agent Samuel Landis' killing of Marganne Allen, a similar piece in Salem Reporter on the road carnage of 2024 was not good. In "2024 was the deadliest year in at least a decade on Salem’s roads, with 25 fatal crashes," the victim-blaming is troublesome and misleading: 

Some factors considered to drive the increase are growing use of smartphones, substance use and a lack of sidewalks. ...In an email, Hedrick said a majority of those crashes [involving people on foot and on bike] happened due to the victims not being visible and illegally being in the roadway.

The inconsistency in Police statements from Upkes and Hedrick is dismaying.

But also dismaying is the lack of curiosity by journalists about cars and driving. Recently we've had pieces about drivers crashing into large, fixed objects well off the roadway.

Last month

Last month

Demolished and removed in late November

Were these objects "not being visible and illegally in the roadway"? 

It's cars, drivers, and speed. If drivers can't manage to avoid large, obvious things like bridges, houses, and welcome signs, if even these things aren't safe from drivers, why do we blame more vulnerable people on foot and bike? The common denominator is not a failure to wear high-visibility gear, it's cars, drivers, and speed.

One factor that gets in the way is the dependence on car advertising as a revenue stream. Note the ad placement on the front page image at top.

Hoover's shift from speed to recklessness
via Bluesky

About Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover's opening address in 1924 to the national conference on traffic safety, historian Peter Norton writes, "Hoover had learned motordom's position well. He dropped all mention of the dangers of speed, and he took a new view of recklessness," directing blame at exceptionally bad individuals rather than at any system, infrastructure, or equipment.

Here's an example from Salem. The site is still a problem today! From the SJ piece: "[Stapleton] pointed to Parrish Middle School as a crucial pedestrian safety spot. The school is next to D Street NE and Capitol Street NE with more than 30,000 cars daily."

January 6th, 1925

At present our culture of autoism, including the car industry, hampers and often mystifies any real understanding. Without mentioning wide streets that allow for it, "Summertime feeling" is not a helpful explanatory cause, for example.

Stapleton's comments should be at the center of our conversation going forward. She is right to highlight speed and to highlight the tension between congestion relief and safety. As long as we optimize streets for capacity and flow, posted speeds will be too high for safe urban travel and in off-peak times the wide expanses of "improved" roads will induce speeding and recklessness above posted speeds.

Routine speeding on Commercial between Hoyt and Rural