Traffic deaths on stretches of Martin Luther King Jr. Way in Seattle have doubled in the last five-year period, despite the city’s goal to reach zero traffic deaths and serious injuries by 2030.
A KUOW analysis of recent city data shows how a city-wide push to lower speed limits can improve some elements of safety – but experts say there is still work to do when it comes to slowing drivers down and keeping pedestrians safe.
Ultimately the answer, at least in my view, is that the people who need to be held responsible for road safety need to be the ones most capable of inflicting harm and most insulated from risk of harm. To be clear, when I say responsible I don’t just mean being punished when there is a fuck up, though there definitely needs to be that, I mean making an effort to ensure that drivers exhibit reasonable levels of competence and designing the environment they exist in to encourage safe behavior.