Safety advocates are calling for the city of Los Angeles to implement stronger measures to curb what has come to be known as “traffic violence,” where extreme speeds and reckless driving seriously injure people and claim innocent lives.
Traffic fatalities have outpaced homicides in Los Angeles for three consecutive years, and serious traffic collisions have become increasingly common on city streets. On Sept. 15, the nonprofit advocacy group Streets Are For Everyone held a rally outside City Hall and submitted an open letter to the Los Angeles City Council asking that an emergency be declared over traffic violence. The same day, a 36-year-old woman who authorities said was under the influence of drugs drove the wrong way on a street in Chatsworth at a high speed, ran a red light and plowed into the side of a Metro bus, killing two people and injuring five others. An NBC4 News helicopter that was covering the collision crashed nearby, killing three additional people. SAFE founder Damian Kevitt said enough is enough.
“The very day that we drop this letter and said, ‘Hey, you need to declare a local emergency because of the amount of traffic violence and you need to recommit to Vision Zero and actually pay attention to this, and then you have another mass traffic fatality event, this time in Chatsworth, and then of course a double tragedy afterward [with the NBC4 helicopter crash],” Kevitt said. “I think it only proves our point. Large sections of De Soto [Avenue], where the driver was speeding, are considered in the top 6% of the deadliest roads in Los Angeles, which result in 60% of the fatalities.”…