The traffic justice movement, by most accounts, is an effort to improve safety for all users of public roads, including pedestrians, bicyclists, and drivers. It assumes that, to some extent, the carnage that occurs every day on roads is preventable by changing the systems that govern them. Advocates of traffic justice come from a number of quarters, from bicycle advocacy groups, to motorist associations, to city planners and public health officials.

Human Sacrifice on the Roads

Modern automobile-dependent societies operate with the knowledge that a certain number of people each year will be brutally injured or killed in crashes on the road. According to the United States Department of Transportation, 42,642 people died in motor-vehicle crashes in 2006. Of these, 5,740 were non-motorists---pedestrians, bicyclists, and others. These numbers have been relatively consistent over the last decade, dropping only somewhat compared to the total number of miles traveled.[1]

This cost is considerable. One in 90 Americans will die in a motor vehicle crash. There is no greater killer of people in their 30's. In terms of years of potential life lost, only cancer and heart disease take a higher toll than traffic.[2] Yet for most Americans, driving is a daily habit. Despite its dangers, people drive because other options are either not available, take much more time, or are not encouraged by the culture. Such willful blindness to a preventable danger is nothing less than human sacrifice.

The National Center for Biking and Walking, whose Traffic Justice Initiative is one of the leading lights in advocacy for traffic justice, has this to say:

"We typically speak of 'accidents,' rarely of crashes or road violence; and rarer still do we treat them as matters of systematic injustice. Yet they are more than an accumulation of random events, more than a series of regrettable yet unavoidable byproducts of our transportation system. They constitute a violent and anti-social assault on life, health and community."[3]

The Bias Toward Cars

In many jurisdictions, authorities attempt to alleviate traffic hazards with a wholly automobile-centered approach. If pedestrians are in danger from cars, for example, decision-makers opt to make roads less accessible to walkers and bicyclists. In large part this is because they are influenced by the most powerful voices of the road safety community, the automobile advocacy groups. These in turn are often funded by car makers and oil companies.[4]

Consequently, the vital need for streets accessible to multiple modes of transportation gets forgotten. Road safety becomes an excuse for making communities less livable, vibrant, and environmentally-friendly. Worse, this means that the most vulnerable are paying the price for the habits of car culture. As the growing pedestrian and bicycle-oriented road safety movement has shown, this need not be the case.

Meanwhile, in popular culture, people are inundated with images that encourage reckless driving. Car advertisements fill the imagination with dangerous stunts and sensations of freedom, rather than the fact of grave responsibility that getting behind the wheel actually represents. Car racing and Hollywood action movies take this misrepresentation to an extreme. Together, these media conjure the ideal image of the driver as above the law and invulnerable.

A Change of Focus

It is unfortunate that road-safety efforts have been directed in this way. It is a passionate movement, often made of people whose loved ones have been killed or injured in needless crashes with motor vehicles. For years, pedestrian and bicycle-oriented groups have been making the case that it is time to turn the scrutiny of road safety on cars even more. For example, the National Center for Biking and Walking's Traffic Justice Institute proposes to advocate the following:

• require drivers to comply with all traffic laws and thereby hold drivers fully accountable for their actions;

• require the installation of event data recorders and other law enforcement technologies into cars and trucks to support the adherence of traffic laws;

• require roads to be designed and built to dramatically reduce speeding, while safely accommodating pedestrians and bicyclists;

• restrict any promotion of dangerous driving;

• assist in the passage of laws extending the privilege of driving only to those who have not abused it;

• require law enforcement agencies to assign traffic law enforcement a priority consistent with the importance of preventing traffic crashes in the communities they serve;

• encourage community leaders to support developments likely to yield shorter trips, fewer trips, and more walking, biking and public transit to complete these trips.[5]

­This comes in sharp contrast to an automobile advocacy group like the National Motorists' Association, which offers to pay its members' tickets if they agree to fight speeding violations in court. They do this, ironically, in the name of "Traffic Justice."[6]

Systemic Change

In addition to more serious traffic enforcement, any lasting progress in traffic justice will mean serious systemic changes to the transportation systems in previously car-centered communities. This means road redesigns that make room for pedestrians and bicycles to travel safely, as well as effective, safe public transit.

ALSO ON THE LIVABLE STREETS NETWORK

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REFERENCES

Each source is referred to by the same number every time it is cited. Please keep citation style consistent.

[1] FARS Encylcopedia (Fatality Analysis Reporting System), various government agencies.

[2] Charles Komanoff. "The Traffic Justice Policy Project".

[3] "Traffic Justice Initiative." The National Center for Biking and Walking.

[4] "Road-traffic Safety." Wikipedia.

[5] "Traffic Justice Institute Reprint." Philadelphia Bicycle News. February 7, 2007.

[6] "We'll Pay Your Speeding Ticket." The Traffic Justice Program. November 7, 2007.

PICTURE REFERENCES

Pictures are cited in the order they appear above. Please keep citation style consistent.

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FURTHER READING

BikeWalk: Traffic Justice Initiative

Pedestrian and Bicycle Information Center (DOT)

Transportation Alternatives - Traffic Justice