AUSTIN (KXAN) — This month marks 10 years since the City of Austin implemented its Vision Zero initiative. The goal: no loss of life or serious injuries on Austin roadways.
Four fatal driving behaviors are an ongoing challenge for Austin:
- Impaired driving
- Speeding
- Distracted driving
- Failure to yield
On average, over the last decade, 500 people have been killed or seriously hurt in crashes in Austin. Between city funding, mobility bond funds, and federal grants, the City of Austin has committed more than $134 million to try to drastically reduce that number.
“In terms of cost-benefit, one of the things we try to highlight in our report is that reducing these crashes and these injuries really has societal benefits from a cost-saving standpoint as well. If you think about the amount of public resources, police, fire, and EMS that have to respond to these crashes every single day, it’s a huge drain on our public safety budgets,” said Joel Meyer, the transportation safety officer with the City of Austin…