Statistics confirm that American drivers continue to massacre walkers and cyclists.

Just the facts, folks. Sorry if it hurts your car to hear them.

Exactly How Far U.S. Street Safety Has Fallen Behind Europe, in Three Bombshell Charts, by Kea Wilson (Streets Blog)

We knew it was bad, but not THIS bad.

The United States has failed to reduce pedestrian and cyclist fatalities as fast as comparably affluent European nations, a new study finds — and the authors think we must employ the same simple, effective policies that they did to catch up in the fight the bloodshed.

Researchers from Virginia Tech and Rutgers University compared the last 28 years of available transportation fatality data from the United States with data from the four countries with the most closely comparable national travel surveys and levels of affluence: Denmark, Germany, Netherlands and the United Kingdom. All four peer nations had reduced per capita pedestrian fatalities by at least 61 percent over the course of the study period — and standout Denmark did so by a whopping 69 percent — but the U.S. reduced ours by just 36 percent.

In other words, our worst peer country’s Vision Zero progress was nearly twice as fast as ours in the last three decades. And of course, U.S. pedestrian fatalities actually increased dramatically between 2010 and 2018. Only the U.K. experienced even a moderate increase over the same period — and some U.K. safety experts blame the rise on American-made SUVs.

Memo to Nawbany: "How Cities Can Reclaim Their Streets From SUVs."

 

Something seldom considered hereabouts: “Safety of people outside the vehicle — pedestrians, cyclists, or other motorists — is obviously a legitimate object for regulation.”

How Cities Can Reclaim Their Streets From SUVs, by David Zipper (CityLab)

Pickup trucks and large sport-utility vehicles have flooded the streets of U.S. cities, a trend that’s been lethal for pedestrians and bike riders. Here’s what urban leaders could do about it. 

 The American fetish for SUVs and trucks isn’t just an environmental disaster. It’s an urban safety crisis. Larger vehicles that share streets with pedestrians and cyclists are more deadly than compact or mid-sized cars, both because their greater weight conveys more force upon impact and because their taller height makes it likelier they will crash into a person’s head or torso rather than their legs. Worse, because SUV drivers sit so much higher than similarly sized farm-near-me/">minivans, blind spots can prevent them from seeing people standing in front, especially children.

Typically, The Onion gets down to the heart of the carnage.          

Conscientious SUV Shopper Just Wants Something That Will Kill Family In Other Car In Case Of Accident (The Onion)

“I don’t need anything fancy, just a practical, midsize SUV that gets good mileage and will easily slaughter a family of five during a 60-mph crash. The last thing I want is a flimsy sedan that takes out Mommy and Daddy in the front seat but leaves behind a couple of orphans in the back.”

Do you think a single New Albany city official has so much as considered this issue? Most of them OWN vehicles like these, don't they? 

It makes this sentence particularly poignant: "If local leaders want to make a statement about the importance of safer, smaller automobiles, they could start by looking at the vehicles the city buys." 

I can't stop laughing. Or is it crying? It's so hard to tell the difference here in His Town.

Traffic Cluster, Part Two: We'll never resolve traffic issues until "leadership" is willing to lead, not pander.

It occurred to me last night that as the coronavirus pushes unprecedented bicycle sales, here and across the country, Jeff Speck gave us a diagram for downtown streets purposefully rebuilt to accommodate modernity in the form of bikes and biking.

Our mayor threw it out the window.

Had he paid attention and been progressive, we now would have the ideal grid for a pandemic, the sort of step even Jeffersonville hasn't managed.

Instead, we have more of what we plainly specialize in as a municipality: congenital underachievement, plain and simple.

It boils down to this.

According to Team Gahan, all traffic issues have been magically resolved by pure genius since the prime cuts of the Speck grid study were rendered into oatmeal-flecked, fat-encrusted sausage to suit the needs of pay-to-play campaign finance.

According to genuine reality, most such issues remain, because our emperors routinely fail to wear clothes, and partisan politics infects everything, leading otherwise thoughtful people like my district councilman Greg Phipps to cautiously treat symptoms with band-aids, leaving major violators like the thoroughly non-calmed Spring Street three-mile long interstate ramp untouched by critical scrutiny.

Yes, Greg you're absolutely right; four-way stops are needed in the neighborhoods. Drivers occasionally run a four-way at full speed, but usually they at least slow before doing so, whereas stop light signals impel drivers to increase their speed as they approach the intersection.

But unless some of them are placed on Spring Street itself, or something else done to slow ever-escalating speeds (which police bizarrely deny even occur), heavy trucks will continue to travel in excess of 40 mph THROUGH A NEIGHBORHOOD WITH MORE CHILDREN LIVING THERE THAN AT ANY TIME IN PHIPPS' RESIDENCY AND MY OWN.

Phipps need only glance outside his window at the tonnage streaking past and feel the vibrations, but he won't, because City Hall is in denial, and City Hall lickspittles are not allowed to ask questions pertaining to demonstrable reality. Big Daddy must be obeyed, and Spring must remain an artery for dipshit drivers.

Because, I suppose, that's who we are as a city: enablers for misbehavior.

We can change this for the better. All we need is a willingness to act. Why must it be this hard to convince them to attack problems that can be seen plainly with their own eyes?

Perhaps it's because they refuse to look.

New Albany council discusses traffic problems, by Daniel Suddeath (Returning Journalist Laps Papa)

NEW ALBANY — The most prominent concern for residents is traffic, and it’s time to ramp up efforts to ease those worries, New Albany City Councilman Scott Blair said during what may be the last virtual gathering of the body.

Traffic was the primary issue discussed during Thursday’s council meeting, with members expressing different ideas for how to address what they said is a city-wide problem.

Seattle's "Stay Healthy Streets": You can't even IMAGINE any of this ever occurring to Jeff Gahan, can you?

No, it can't even be imagined.

Consider this: Gahan's belated embrace of public art for the parking garage has resulted in a three-story-high Freudian anchor seal and gigantic paintings of automobiles. 

There are, and always have been, people near Gahan who actually do "get it." But in Nawbany, you can't keep it (your job) without ditching any practical urban aptitude that runs contrary to campaign finance's pay-to-play circle of remuneration.

Too bad. Some of them might have amounted to something. All they have to look forward to now is a lifetime of employment as bootlicking functionaries, maintaining Dear Leader's automobile supremacy until retirement.

Seattle to bar traffic from 20 miles of streets so residents can exercise, bike, by Kaelan Deese (The Hill)

Seattle to bar traffic from 20 miles of streets so residents can exercise, bike

Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan (D) announced Thursday that the city plans to permanently bar 20 miles of roads from car traffic to leave room for people to use bikes and walk.

According to a city spokesperson, the streets would be closed for thru-traffic only, allowing residents to still access their homes using vehicles and delivery companies to continue services.

The measure is part of a larger initiative that began in April called Stay Healthy Streets, a temporary relief program providing more space for residents to leave their houses while practicing social distancing guidelines amid the coronavirus pandemic, according to a press release.

"Safe and Healthy Streets are an important tool for families in our neighborhoods to get outside, get some exercise and enjoy the nice weather," Durkan said.

The Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) said that areas chosen to be closed from car traffic include places with routes that connect foot traffic with essential services and food stops, as well as streets with low car ownership, according to a release.

"We've witnessed a 57% drop in vehicle traffic volumes accessing downtown Seattle during Governor Inslee's Stay Healthy, Stay Home order," SDOT said. "Finding new and creative ways, like Stay Healthy Streets, to maintain some of these traffic reductions as we return to our new normal is good for the planet, but is also good for our long-term fight against COVID-19."

Part of the initiative includes building better bike infrastructure such as bike lanes to improve mobility around the city and help reduce pollution in the process.

The Seattle Bicycle Advisory Board strongly supported the measures Durkan announced Thursday.

"All these actions together will help Seattle come back as a safer, healthier, and more climate friendly city," the board said in the release.

"The coronavirus shutdowns are making more obvious a pre-existing epidemic of reckless street design."

A related story yesterday:

The future of work, and of commuting to work, surely will be different.

It should surprise no one that in New Albany, a political process currently being held hostage by mayor and city council president has no room for responsiveness on ANY matter of importance, much less the perennially abused street grid.

I doubt their automobile centrism has abated with quarantine. We'll see. My own period of detachment from involvement with public affairs originally was slated to expire on June 30.

We'll see about THAT, too. Let's have a look at genuine leadership out in Oakland.

Drivers Not Wanted on Oakland’s ‘Slow Streets’, by Laura Bliss (CityLab)

The California city isn’t the first to experiment with car restrictions in the coronavirus pandemic, but its plan to discourage drivers is the most extensive.

Last week, Oakland, California, announced a bold answer to shelter-in-place coronavirus claustrophobia: To create more outdoor space and safer corridors for essential travel by foot or bike, the city would restrict access to vehicles on nearly 74 miles of city street — about 10% of the city’s street network.

“In this unprecedented moment we must do everything we can to ensure the safety and well-being of all families across our city,” stated Mayor Libby Schaaf. “Closing roads means opening up our city.”

The “slow streets” initiative, which began on Saturday and will roll out in four segments through the duration of the coronavirus emergency, comes in response to citizen concerns about overcrowded conditions in parks and on sidewalks during the coronavirus lockdown. It’s not really a “closure,” despite the mayor’s phrasing: Emergency vehicles like police cars, fire trucks and ambulances are still permitted to enter these new pedestrian corridors, as are delivery vehicles and residential traffic. In fact, no drivers will be ticketed if they do drive on these streets.

The change is mostly a firm psychological nudge, said Warren Logan, the director of mobility policy and interagency relations in the Oakland mayor’s office. Confronted by a pair of traffic signs and a barricade blocking one lane, drivers now have to think twice about entering these streets. Many will consider taking a different route. And all will hopefully drive more mindfully when they enter a slow-streets zone — an increasingly important concern in cities where the relative absence of traffic has inspired a wave of speeding violations. “When they do turn into the street, they do it carefully,” Logan said.

After a week in action, Oakland officials say the streets are working as planned — no collisions, no reported instances of unsafe gathering, and more families able to move (and dance) at spacious distances. As if out of an earlier era, small children are riding bikes in the middle of the street without their parents needing to worry. “This is an opportunity to remember that these are our streets, not just streets for cars,” Logan said.

The same flawed HWC Engineering campaign donations-meet-street grid bait 'n' switch that wasn't working prior to the pandemic hasn't grown any more sensible with sheltering at home. It was crap then, and so it remains. 

Have Coronavirus Shutdowns Prompted an Epidemic of Reckless Driving? by Daniel Herriges (Strong Towns)

Reports from many cities indicate a surge in aggressive speeding, and with it, automobile crashes. The statistics are remarkable and alarming in light of how much traffic itself has declined, with many businesses closed and residents sheltering at home ...

... The most common tendency I've seen in reporting of this phenomenon is to blame "reckless driving." In other words, it's just that people who have sociopathic and destructive urges are out there on the empty roads playing Ricky Bobby and indulging them, to tragic effect. Is that the whole story?

This pat answer is consistent with our societal bias toward always talking about traffic violence in terms of individual behavior: either it was just a tragic accident, or the people involved should have been paying more attention. Mainstream media rarely interrogate how street design induces drivers to behave in certain ways. Yet we've written about this again and again on Strong Towns, because the evidence is clear: when you design streets to make high speeds comfortable, you make tragedy statistically inevitable.

Over 40,000 Americans die in traffic in a normal year. The number of pedestrians alone killed by U.S. drivers from 2008 to 2017 averages out to one every 1 hour and 46 minutes. If we're appalled by the level of carnage on our roads while most of us are sheltering in place, we should certainly be appalled by the level of carnage the rest of the time. If we think there's an epidemic of reckless driving right now, it's just a continuation of the epidemics of reckless driving that we witnessed in America in 2019, and 2018, and 2017, et cetera. The status quo isn't anything to want to return to here.

The coronavirus shutdowns are making more obvious a pre-existing epidemic of reckless street design.

"There have been 18 cyclist fatalities in New York so far this year. Perhaps drivers should face more serious consequences."

"But without a systemic rethinking of the primacy of cars in urban life and the implementation of more aggressive ways to de-incentivize driving and particularly careless driving, it is hard to imagine a new world emerging."

I can't recall a time since he was elected prosecutor that Keith Henderson has "held accountable" a driver who has killed a non-driver. Maybe I missed one, but I think the trend is clear. It isn't a very good trend, either.

We’ve Blamed Traffic Deaths on Bicyclists Since 1880. What About Drivers?, by Ginia Bellafante (New York Times)

There have been 18 cyclist fatalities in New York so far this year. Perhaps drivers should face more serious consequences.

 ... However much cyclists might need to heighten their awareness on the roads, cars and trucks kill people in far greater volume than cyclists kill people. Of the 711 pedestrians who have died in traffic collusions since 2014, only four have been killed by bicycles.

The law, however, protects some forms of human error more assiduously than others. In the same week that a driver was punished with a summons for opening a car door in such a way that it led to a young woman’s death, Juan Rodriguez, a social worker and the father of 1-year old twins, was charged with manslaughter for accidentally closing the door to his car, leaving his children in the back seat, where they died from the excessive heat. He believed that he had dropped them off at day care, in a scenario that has become tragically common among distracted parents since the late 1990s.

Just over a week ago, the mayor introduced a $58.4 million plan directed at promoting bike safety in the wake of the current crisis in fatalities. The plan calls for the installation of more bike lanes, the redesign of certain intersections and various traffic signaling adjustments ...

Five years ago today: "The more greatly a place conforms to post war auto centric design, the more injurious it is to people."

Gahan, Rosenbarger set to go full frontal Pinocchio about their urbanism credentials when the Congress for the New Urbanism 27 meets in Louisville June 11-15.

Originally published on June 3, 2014 and just as true today as then.

---

Are we bugging you with facts? We don't mean to bug you.

More Narrative (Rational Urbanism)

There are conceptual links which, somehow, form narratives in the news media, and others which don’t. Urban homicides form a narrative. Whether at a bar at closing time, a domestic dispute, a drug deal gone bad, or something gang related they are all bound together as a tale of death and the streets. That they are linked more to behavior and identity than place goes unnoticed and uncommented because it unwinds the narrative.

The story of death and the road, as distinct from death and the streets, is told much differently. It is told as a tale of behavior and identity (speed, age, drunkenness) but almost never a story of place. Place rating sites completely ignore traffic fatalities and pedestrian deaths in their calculations of livability despite the fact that there is clearly a causational link between place and fatality and injury: the more greatly a place conforms to post war auto centric design, the more injurious it is to people.

Routine traffic stops? "Let's stop using the terrible design of our cities as a random pretext and, instead, be proactive about fixing the design."

I'm having trouble finding the extract from this essay that best conveys the central point, so I've chosen two.

Routine Traffic Stops Should Not Be Used to Fight Violent Crime, by Charles Marohn (Strong Towns)

“I’ll bet we can watch him drive for five minutes and pick out a traffic infraction.”

Those were the words of a Louisville police officer speaking to a resident about her son. The young man had been pulled over for an improper turn, which led to a lengthy episode in which he was ordered from his car, frisked, and then handcuffed while his (turned out to be mom’s) car was searched and, to a degree, dismantled.

There is a lot of outrage about this video. It’s a case study in psychology, and not a flattering one. But I’m not going to focus on that. Instead, I want to return to a topic I’ve written and spoken extensively about: the routine traffic stop.

Back in 2016, I wrote a column calling for an end to the routine traffic stop. My arguments were simple. First, routine traffic stops are very dangerous for police officers. Second, they have little to do with traffic safety. And, third, the pretext for most routine traffic stops—that someone has committed a traffic infraction—is arbitrary, disingenuous, and ripe for all the worst kinds of abuse.

As I wrote in a follow up piece, also from 2016:

Randomly enforcing traffic laws that are routinely ignored in other times and places (because they are not well-correlated to actual safety) as a pretext to initiate contact with high crime populations is unnecessarily dangerous for all involved. In addition to breeding resentment, I also strongly suspect it does not reduce crime, although it creates the illusion of fighting crime.

If we're worried about traffic safety, let's deal with that. If we're worried about catching bad guys, let's deal with that. Let's stop using the terrible design of our cities as a random pretext and, instead, be proactive about fixing the design.

There is a breakdown of the Louisville incident, then several conclusions.

And because I care about traffic safety, when the GPS coordinates associated with traffic infractions show a cluster of violations in the same spot, we need to get our engineers and urban designers out there to make some changes to the site. Our streets should be designed to be intuitively safe. If people are repeatedly doing unsafe things in a specific place, that indicates a design issue. The answer is to fix the design.

And because tens of thousands of people die in automobile collisions each year, and many more people—inside and outside of vehicles—are maimed and crippled through auto crashes, I want traffic enforcement taken seriously. I want it to focus on serious deviants: those operating a vehicle in ways that are threatening. And I want it done by traffic police, not by a violent crimes unit using traffic law as a pretext for a fishing expedition.

---

Democratic mayoral candidate David White understands that change begins with a whole lotta scrubbing, and NA Confidential advocates just such a deep civic cleansing. 

After eight years on the job, Mayor Jeff Gahan's list of stunning "achievements" is long, indeed: tax increases, budgetary hide 'n' seek, self-deification, daily hypocrisy, public housing takeover, non-transparency, pay-to-play for no-bid contracts, bullying city residents and bullying city employees. Eight years is enough. It's time to drain Gahan's swamp, flush his ruling clique and take this city back from Gahan's Indy-based special interest donors. 

NA Confidential supports David White for Mayor in the Democratic Party primary, with voting now through May 7. 

"Right now pedestrians are being killed and injured by motorists at the highest rate in decades."

Just think about all those times when the bored of works enumerated the many splendid reasons why they couldn't (read: wouldn't) help make our streets safe.

Just think about city engineer Larry Summers' passive-aggressive protests -- but traffic flow, but INDOT, but whatever else springs to an obstructionist's mind.

Just think about how different it would be if their first response wasn't "here's why we can't and won't help" but "we'll find a way to help."

Just think if the latter resolve constituted Jeff Gahan's instructions to pliant super-sized campaign donors like HWC Engineering, rather than using HWC as a shield to defend the veneer salesman's preference for our car-centric status quo.

Just think if Greg Phipps had the chutzpah to disagree with his cash-stuffed overlord and insisted on trying to make the situation better, rather than meekly accepting the status quoin the name of non-democratic Democrats.

We'll stop there. After all, "just thinking" is precisely what they're not doing.

#FireGahan2019
#FlushTheClique
#DrainTheSwamp

The Stark Traffic Safety Divide, by Sarah Holder (CityLab)

Pedestrians fatalities are rising sharply as Americans spend more time behind the wheel. And self-driving technology isn’t likely to be the fix we need.

In some ways, the crash that killed pedestrian Elaine Herzberg in Tempe, Arizona, last year, was a typical distracted-driving incident, with a cruel high-tech twist: As Herzberg walked her bike across the road in the dark of night, the driver of the Volvo SUV hurtling toward her was streaming an episode of The Voice on her cell phone.

But the driver wasn’t the only operator that was distracted: The car was part of Uber’s fleet of self-driving test vehicles, racking up miles in computer control mode. Its many sensors should have recognized the pedestrian obstacle in its path and avoided the collision. Instead, the SUV’s operating system kept right on driving; and the human driver failed to intervene. Herzberg was fatally injured, and died in the hospital.

This week, at least one chapter of the long legal battle that ensued against Uber—which made the self-driving technology that powered the car—closed, when an Arizona prosecutor ruled that the company was not criminally liable for Herzberg’s death. The driver may still face manslaughter charges.

The Tempe case was so high-profile in part because it was historic—the first recorded case of a pedestrian killed by an autonomous vehicle, a long-dreaded industry milestone that threatened to confirm the public’s worst fears about self-driving technology.

But the coverage of the incident may have obscured a larger tragedy: That every day in the U.S., pedestrians like Herzberg are being killed by regular drivers at a staggering rate. And though autonomous vehicles promise to eventually replace humans at the wheel—and eventually, promoters of this technology insist, make the streets safer—right now pedestrians are being killed and injured by motorists at the highest rate in decades.

Here's Jeff Speck to explain how speed kills -- and there's Team Gahan, ignoring him.

Jeff Speck was on Twitter, Christmas Eve. 

While many different factors influence the safety of humans in cities, none matters nearly so much as the speed at which vehicles are traveling. The relationship between vehicle speed and danger is, to put it mildly, exponential. (1/4)

The death risk to pedestrians from vehicles takes a dramatic upturn at 25 mph. (2/4)

The diagram above is one of many that can be found to communicate this relationship. Others show people falling out of buildings, with 20 mph equaling the second floor and 40 mph equaling the seventh. (3/4)

The basic message to remember is that you are about five times as likely to be killed by a car going 30 as a car going 20, and five times again as likely to be killed by a car going 40. (4/4)

Continued this morning.

This threshold zone of 20 to 40 mph, is basically where it all happens—the difference between bruises, broken bones, and death. And 20 to 40 is roughly the range of speeds that we find cars traveling on the best downtown streets. (1/5)

Keeping cars on the lower end of that range, therefore, must be the central objective of urban street design. (2/5)

The speed of the impact itself is not the only factor. As cars move faster, the likelihood of a crash also rises. Drivers and pedestrians alike have less time to respond to conflicts, stopping distances lengthen, and the driver’s cone of vision narrows. (3/5)

As drivers move more quickly, their cone of vision narrows, making crashes more likely. (4/5)

These factors multiply the impact of speed beyond those indicated in the above graph. It is safe to say that a car traveling 30 mph is probably at least three times as dangerous as one going 25. (5/5)

An addendum to yesterday's curious case: "Are we supposed to be sympathetic for a driver who was traveling at 144% of the speed limit?"

And ...

We'll continue posting these charts until all our readers have had the chance to learn from them.

In the meantime, let's have a look at another side of the issues discussed in yesterday's post.

GREEN MOUSE SAYS: The curious case of the speeding ticket, the honest cop, his fuming chief and the city's abject failure to calm downtown traffic.

 ... (The police officer) comes to the window and says “Ma’am, you were going 36.” After I said ok, he said he has to give me a ticket because the chief of police for Floyd County told him he had to write 5 tickets in that spot tonight.

A regular reader raises this interesting point.

Interesting story. Are we supposed to be sympathetic for a woman who was traveling at 144% of the speed limit? I realize that's not the point, at all. But, still. 144%?

When I was tagged onto the driver's original Facebook post, it occurred to me that (a) when the police monitor traffic on Spring Street, they generally do so from one or the other location, and (b) one of these locations is situated where the posted speed is 25 m.p.h., not 30 m.p.h.

It occurred to me to gently make this point on the driver's post, but before I could get back to it, the post had disappeared. Now we know why; the chief of police intervened and the whole matter was swept safely under the rug.

Still, our reader's point is valid: 144%?

36 m.p.h. in a 25 m.p.h. zone works out to 144% higher. Speed kills, and the case we've made time and again in these pages is that in densely populated areas, the very least we can do is have uniform 25 mph speeds, because with the requisite traffic calming measures as suggested by Jeff Speck and others, speeds might be brought far closer to the safer, lower m.p.h. than what passes for safety now.

By the way, when's the last time you saw a semi or a wrecker being ticketed for speeding on Spring Street? Yeah, me either.

Unfortunately, another undisputed fact we've reported time and again in these pages is Mayor Jeff Gahan's complete inability to understand any of this. His interpretation of the two-way streets project was to affix a shoddy veneer of action atop an underlying "business-as-usual" version of nothingness.

Or, to claim victory, monetize, rinse and repeat.

We can fix this in 2019.

Until then, yes, it is fairly common to receive speeding tickets when you're traveling 11 m.p.h. above the limit, whatever the source of the police officer's political directives.

In Tampa with bicycles, in New Albany with all of us: "The yellow-blinking-light crosswalk there now gives pedestrians and cyclists a false sense of security."

On Twitter, Jeff Speck retweeted an important link: The Most Dangerous Place to Bicycle in America, by Scott Calvert and Max Rust (Wall Street Journal)

At 10:00 a.m., the weekly meeting of New Albany's Board of Public Works and Safety will convene. Will any of the city employees, elected officials, engineers, vendors and contractors in attendance have read this WSJ report?

Probably not, and that's unfortunate.

Here's the first section.

Trung Huynh used a marked crosswalk with flashing yellow lights when he rode his bike across busy, six-lane Park Boulevard in Pinellas Park, Fla., one morning in June.

The 18-year-old didn’t make it to the median.

A white Chevy Malibu going an estimated 45 mph slammed into him and his bike, police said. Mr. Huynh died at the scene.

The collision added to the already-high cyclist death toll in Pinellas County. Its per-capita cyclist death rate for the past decade ranks No. 1 among the four counties in the Tampa Bay metro area, which has the highest fatality rate of any major metro area in the U.S., according to federal data.

Here's the conclusion.

The state transportation department recently conducted a study of Park Boulevard, one of the county’s most perilous thoroughfares. Officials found a majority of the cyclists ride on sidewalks rather than on the road, which doesn’t have bike lanes.

Many bike crashes occur when cyclists don’t use a crosswalk, a department spokeswoman said. The department plans by next summer to install three mid-block crosswalks on Park Boulevard featuring a red light that pedestrians or cyclists can activate.

Pinellas County officials said they plan to install this type of signal at the intersection where Mr. Huynh was killed. Construction is scheduled to begin by early 2019.

Rob Angell, deputy chief of operations of the Pinellas Park Fire Department, said the upgrade can’t come soon enough. The yellow-blinking-light crosswalk there now gives pedestrians and cyclists a false sense of security, he said. There is no guarantee drivers will stop, he said, and cars go “flying through there.”

As a closing note to self-identified progressives who may be reading today, be aware that the city's street grid is a social justice issue. For the sake of consistency, you can't pick and choose when you wish to be progressive and when you don't.

Especially if you're a candidate for office.

Chris Morris on distracted driving: "Pedestrians have the right-of-way, and don’t block crosswalks with your vehicles."

True story.

Those of us not cocooned in our cars understand quite well what it is.

Bullying, or the routine aggression that characterizes bad driving behavior.

We’ve all been there. You’re crossing the street, thinking you have a clear path, when the driver waiting at the light starts lurching into the crosswalk, itching for the green signal. Before you know it, you and everyone else crossing has to squeeze around this bully.

Inspired by a recent Jonathan McLeod post (headline: “Stop fucking driving your car at people”), I set out to catalogue a few of the most obnoxious behaviors people routinely engage in behind the wheel of a car.

Intersection bullying — when motorists occupy a chunk of crosswalk real estate that belongs to pedestrians with the right of way — is just one example of the many nasty, antisocial, and downright dangerous things drivers do when they’re interacting with people outside their car.

There’s a ton of bad driving behavior that should be socially unacceptable, but for some reason, granted the anonymity of a car, people engage in it anyway. This routine aggression needs to be called out for what it is — bullying.

Chris Morris nails this one.

MORRIS: Dealing with distracted drivers (Raycom Meets Tom May)

One of the reasons given for New Albany’s street conversion last year was to slow traffic, making it safer to not only drive in the city, but to walk, jog and ride a bike without the fear of being hit by a speeding car.

But city government can’t legislate distracted driving or those motorists who ignore traffic signals and crosswalks. Unless the police see it, not much can be done. So, a year later, are the streets safer?

Let’s say things have improved.

As a regular walker and jogger I see people every day ignore basic principles of driving on a downtown street. The main ones being pedestrians have the right-of-way, and don’t block crosswalks with your vehicles.

Here is what I see regularly at crosswalks: A motorist will pull up to the stop, ignore both me and the crosswalk, and wait for an opening before pulling out into traffic. Even though I was there first, and already had a step in the crosswalk, they just go on as if I were invisible. This one drives me crazy. Crosswalks are there for a reason, to allow walkers a safe path to cross a street.

This happens regularly in the morning as I cross Eighth Street. I usually have to jog behind or between cars because the crosswalk is covered up by a vehicle. It’s like I am invisible as they prepare to pull out onto Spring Street ...

“Driving is the most likely way we’ll kill someone else, but we’re not treating cars like the dangerous things that they are.”

100 times worse than we thought: Insights from a Zendrive’s 2018 Distracted Driving Snapshot

I won't say "distracted walking" doesn't happen, because I've seen it and done it a few times myself. The point to remember is that someone like me who is walking "distracted" carries poundage in the hundreds rather than the thousands. Drivers are coddled daily in myriad ways, but the point stays the same: they're capable of wreaking far greater havoc, and their responsibility is greater, and the law enforcement apparatus should prosecute accordingly.

Do YOU see someone like Keith Henderson doing so? I sure don't, although perhaps the politicized prosecutor agrees with me on one point: put down your damn device and pay attention.

Driving? Your Phone Is A Distraction Even If You Aren’t Looking At It, by Christie Aschwanden (Five Thirty Eight)

... You can think of driving’s demands as a three-legged stool, requiring eyes on the road, hands on the wheel (not to mention feet on the pedals), and mind on the task. Anything less than all three, and you’re driving impaired.

Most attempts to mitigate the risk of cellphone use while driving have focused on the first two legs. Texting while driving is banned in 47 states, and 16 states prohibit drivers from handheld phone use. But legislative approaches like these don’t address the third leg of the distraction stool. “You can’t do a drug test for cognitive impairment,” said Kyle Mathewson, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Alberta.

Anything that takes the eyes off the road or hands off the wheel is clearly dangerous.

Bullying, or the routine aggression that characterizes bad driving behavior.

We begin with the basics.

This means you: "STOP FUCKING DRIVING YOUR CAR AT PEOPLE."

My favorite paragraph from the following is this:

See someone crossing the road ahead? Slow down and be prepared to stop. If braking at the sight of human beings in the path of your car feels like an unbearable imposition, you might be a garbage person.

Yep.

How to Not Be a Bully Behind the Wheel, by Angie Schmitt (Streetsblog)

We’ve all been there. You’re crossing the street, thinking you have a clear path, when the driver waiting at the light starts lurching into the crosswalk, itching for the green signal. Before you know it, you and everyone else crossing has to squeeze around this bully.

Inspired by a recent Jonathan McLeod post (headline: “Stop fucking driving your car at people”), I set out to catalogue a few of the most obnoxious behaviors people routinely engage in behind the wheel of a car.

Intersection bullying — when motorists occupy a chunk of crosswalk real estate that belongs to pedestrians with the right of way — is just one example of the many nasty, antisocial, and downright dangerous things drivers do when they’re interacting with people outside their car.

There’s a ton of bad driving behavior that should be socially unacceptable, but for some reason, granted the anonymity of a car, people engage in it anyway. This routine aggression needs to be called out for what it is — bullying. To start things off, I’ve compiled this short list of things that people should never do behind the wheel ...

"It turns out the rich really are different from you and me. They drive like entitled jerks."

Without further comment.

It's official: The fancier the car, the more likely the driver's a jerk, by Alfred Lubrano (Philly News)

It turns out the rich really are different from you and me. They drive like entitled jerks.

They’re middle-finger-pointing, ride-up-your-trunk-bullying, outta-my-way motorists.

That’s the authoritative word from researchers who keep track of this sort of thing.

Three studies over the last five years show that people driving expensive cars were more likely to cut off other motorists and less likely to stop for pedestrians in crosswalks ...

In the wake of Sunday's pedestrian murder by autonomous Uber in Arizona, councilman McLaughlin renews his call for proper speedway markings.

They work where I work, he added.

Whether Gahan or street grid, if we'd all just stay inside the boundary stripes, it would be so much easier for the pillars of our community to think clearly.

Fatal Uber Crash Raises Red Flags About Self-Driving Safety, by Laura Bliss (CityLab)

After a woman in Tempe was killed by a self-driving Uber, local law enforcement was quick to absolve the company of blame. Transportation experts aren’t so sure.

Every day, as he goes to and from work, Arizona State University urban planning professor David King rides his bike* past the intersection where Elaine Herzberg was killed on Sunday night. The seven-lane road (counting turn lanes) in Tempe, Arizona is wide open, with no bushes or parked cars for a person to jump out from behind. In the immediate vicinity are a large park, an office building, and a nightclub that’s closed on Sundays—few potential distractions for a driver negotiating the area.

Herzberg, a 49-year-old woman who was homeless, was pushing a bicycle laden with her belongings along this road when she was struck by a self-driving Uber vehicle around 10 p.m. Sunday. She later died at a hospital, gaining the grisly distinction of being the first known pedestrian to be killed by a self-driving car ...

Meet Dongho Chang: "Seattle’s chief traffic engineer is less concerned with how fast cars are getting through the city and more concerned with how people — on foot, on bike, in buses and cars — interact with the streets."

A boy can dream. I had such high hopes for Larry Summers, and maybe he'll be able to rally, but in the end -- so predictably, and so sadly -- Jeff Gahan's dull mediocrity corrupts everyone and everything it touches.

We could have been contenders, alas. Meanwhile, try to imagine our city hall functionaries walking or riding bikes.

Can't do it, can you?

Perhaps they don't feel safe. If only they had some way of correcting this fear ...

Meet the man striving to make Seattle’s streets safer, more efficient, by David Gutman (Seattle Times)

Seattle’s chief traffic engineer is less concerned with how fast cars are getting through the city and more concerned with how people — on foot, on bike, in buses and cars — interact with the streets.

Dongho Chang’s Twitter feed is boring.

You want caustic political opinions or an endless cavalcade of bad news? Look elsewhere.

What you’ll get from Chang, the city of Seattle’s chief traffic engineer:

Pictures of plastic speed bumps outside a West Seattle elementary school. New crosswalks in Lake City. New curb ramps in South Park. Protected bike lanes all over the place.

Chang’s feed is a catalog of changes to Seattle’s street grid and urban landscape. Almost all those changes are small, but when taken together, they paint a picture of a city in transformation, one less focused on fast car travel and more focused on making streets safe and reliable for walkers, bikers, bus riders and drivers.

Seattle isn’t building many new streets these days. Chang, along with dozens of engineers and technicians, works to make the streets we have function better, rejiggering speed limits and lane lines, trying new ideas to make the streets more welcoming and more efficient.

The results, like them or not, are apparent: Seattle’s not getting easier for drivers anytime soon. But it’s one of the safest cities in the country for pedestrians. And while downtown neighborhoods have added 45,000 jobs in the last six years, the rate of drive-alone commuters has declined, and transit use has spiked.

Distraction kills: "We all know what’s going on, but we don’t have a breathalyzer for a phone."

When you're walking, the scale of the problem quickly becomes evident.

In a sad auto-centric world, it's important for walkers and bicyclists to at least have the safety mechanism of making eye contact with drivers.

Eye contact can't be made through tinted windows, or when their heads are down gazing at phones.

Smartphones Are Killing Americans, But Nobody’s Counting, by Kyle Stock, Lance Lambert, and David Ingold (Bloomberg)

Amid a historic spike in U.S. traffic fatalities, federal data on the danger of distracted driving are getting worse.

 ... Over the past two years, after decades of declining deaths on the road, U.S. traffic fatalities surged by 14.4 percent. In 2016 alone, more than 100 people died every day in or near vehicles in America, the first time the country has passed that grim toll in a decade. Regulators, meanwhile, still have no good idea why crash-related deaths are spiking: People are driving longer distances but not tremendously so; total miles were up just 2.2 percent last year. Collectively, we seemed to be speeding and drinking a little more, but not much more than usual. Together, experts say these upticks don’t explain the surge in road deaths.

There are however three big clues, and they don’t rest along the highway. One, as you may have guessed, is the substantial increase in smartphone use by U.S. drivers as they drive. From 2014 to 2016, the share of Americans who owned an iPhone, Android phone, or something comparable rose from 75 percent to 81 percent.

The second is the changing way in which Americans use their phones while they drive. These days, we’re pretty much done talking. Texting, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram are the order of the day—all activities that require far more attention than simply holding a gadget to your ear or responding to a disembodied voice. By 2015, almost 70 percent of Americans were using their phones to share photos and follow news events via social media. In just two additional years, that figure has jumped to 80 percent.

Finally, the increase in fatalities has been largely among bicyclists, motorcyclists, and pedestrians—all of whom are easier to miss from the driver’s seat than, say, a 4,000-pound SUV—especially if you’re glancing up from your phone rather than concentrating on the road. Last year, 5,987 pedestrians were killed by cars in the U.S., almost 1,100 more than in 2014—that’s a 22 percent increase in just two years.

It comes down to what is deemed acceptable. In my lifetime, attitudes toward driving intoxicated have become vastly more responsible -- drivers still drink and drive, but compared to 50 years ago, it's better.

“I use the cocktail party example,” he explained. “If you’re at a cocktail party and say, ‘I was so hammered the other day, and I got behind the wheel,’ people will be outraged. But if you say the same thing about using a cell phone, it won’t be a big deal. It is still acceptable, and that’s the problem.”

SHANE'S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS: Salmoning, shoaling -- bicycling, to be exact.

On Monday, the word "salmoning" appeared at NA Confidential for the first time in our 13-year history.

Why it’s safer for bicyclists to ride with traffic - not against it.

However, is this type of riding actually safer than following traffic flow? In a word, no. There are a number of risks associated with salmoning ...

To tell the truth, I was completely unaware that "salmoning" was a word, although it makes perfect sense.

Following are definitions of a few other cycling terms. As a public service (seriously), I'm reprinting the complete 2014 article from National Public Radio, and hope it doesn't mind my doing so.

---

Don't Salmon, Don't Shoal: Learning The Lingo Of Safe Cycling, by Marc Silver (NPR)

Alec Baldwin, you were salmoning!

The actor was ticketed in New York on Tuesday for riding his bicycle the wrong way on a one-way street.

Cyclists use the term "salmoning" to describe a biker going against the stream on a one-way bike lane. Surely the definition can be broadened to include Baldwin's infraction.

While salmoning is a funny word, it's a dangerous action. In a bike lane, it can bring on an unwelcome game of chicken when a wrong-way cyclist heads toward cyclists going the proper way. Salmoning also creates a potential hazard for motorists crossing a bike lane via a legal cut-through. They'd assume they only need to scan in one direction for incoming pedalers. Some cities discourage salmoning with clever signage, like this in London: "If you can read this you are biking the wrong way."

In honor of National Bike to Work week, I've collected a few examples of cycling jargon that's all about safety.

Door zone: That's the space right next to the parked car lane. If a motorist opens the door, a passing cyclist can get "doored." Cyclists have been severely injured or killed from hitting the door or being bounced into traffic.

In many municipalities, it is illegal to open a door into traffic, which includes bicycles, says Greg Billing, advocacy coordinator for the Washington Area Bicyclist Association. When riding in a bike lane up against parked cars, "ride on the outermost third of the lane, nearing the white line," he suggests. In other situations, keep 3 to 4 feet from parked cars, putting you out of the zone, or at least far enough away that you can take evasive action if a door opens.

Sharrow: A cyclist is riding in a bike lane. The bike lane ends. In the middle of the lane of traffic ahead sits a stenciled cyclist and a couple of chevrons. That painted symbol is a "sharrow" –- a shared lane arrow. It's only been around a decade or so, reminding motorists there will be cyclists ahead, says Andy Clarke, president of the League of American Bicyclists.

Of course, cyclists have the right to ride in any lane; skeptics worry that drivers might think they don't have to share the lane if there's no sharrow. "The jury's still out on some of these signs," says Clarke. As a commuting cyclist, I share the sharrow view of D.C. commuter Evan Wilder: "I imagine the motorist thinking, 'Oh, right, it's OK that the biker's in the middle of the road.' "

Bike box: That's a box painted between the crosswalk and the white line that shows motorists where to stop, with bikes stenciled within its borders. The benefit: A cyclist can easily switch from one side of the street to the other to make turns. This kind of arrangement is called an "advanced stop line" in the Netherlands, where it began, and the bike-loving Dutch actually have two traffic signals at intersections: one for bicyclists in the box, to give them a head start, followed by the signal for motorists.

Ninja: That's a night rider who wears dark clothes and eschews bike lights. Not only a bad idea, but against the law in every state — a white front light and rear reflector or light are required.

Shoaling: A shoal is a school of fish. Or a collection of cyclists at a red light. That's where shoaling happens. A cyclist comes up to the light, eyeballs a cyclist already there, thinks, "I'm faster than that person," and moves ahead.

But who can truly judge a cyclist's speed potential? Maybe the person you've shoaled is faster than you and will want to pass you once the light changes. To avoid triggering such unnecessary passes (not to mention road rage), "it's safer for people to wait at the light with everybody else and make the pass in the lane," says Billing. Or if you're really in a rush, just ask the other cyclist: "Hey, I'm late, is it OK to get in front of you?"

Idaho stop: Since 1982, Idaho law has given cyclists the right to treat a stop sign as a yield (slow down and roll through if traffic allows) and to treat a red light as a stop sign (look both ways and proceed if no cars are coming). That's the Idaho stop. It's the law only in Idaho, although there are a few local variations. Several Colorado towns have adopted the "stop sign = yield" portion. And in some states, if a red light only turns green when a sensor senses a car, a cyclist can proceed after 120 seconds or so.

The Idaho stop is hotly debated. In Idaho, notes Clarke, "the sky has not fallen, there's not a terrible crash rate. It probably legitimizes what's already happening."

Then again, in a world where drivers think bicyclists are renegades, Clarke thinks a big push for the Idaho stop would not go over well. "Red lights should be inviolate," he says, but "the mechanics of stop signs are different -– having to put your foot down at every stop sign is often pointless. Most cyclists can roll through without any harm."

Meanwhile, I bet Alec Baldwin has done his share of Idaho stops. In fact, I bet just about every cyclist has, except maybe the cyclist who once yelled at me for doing an Idaho stop at a light: "You're making cyclists look like they don't obey traffic laws!"