U.S. DOT “Road to Zero” Conference - Selected Statements Focusing on Pedestrian and Bicycle Safety Issues
U.S.DOT “Road to Zero” Safety Conference
October 5, 2016
https://one.nhtsa.gov/nhtsa/symposiums/october2016/index.html
Selected Transcribed Statements Focusing on Pedestrian and Bicycle Safety Issues
By David Helms from NHTSA video
At this day-long conference, NHTSA will follow up on a series of meetings held earlier this year to address a nationwide increase in traffic deaths. The agency will be joined by the Federal Highway Administration, Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration and the National Safety Council to lay out countermeasures and behavior-change strategies that will cut traffic fatalities and put the United States on the road to zero traffic fatalities.
Statements BOLD below for emphasis
3:00 Victor Mendez, U.S. DOT Deputy Secretary
Time goes by quickly, so we need to stay focused towards zero deaths
We want to eliminate deaths, that’s our goal
Our spike in 2015 was actually the highest spike in the past 50 years (since 1966), that surprised a lot of us
10:41 Mark R. Rosekind, Ph.D., NHTSA Administrator
Fatalities are on the rise
We can’t keep doing more of the same and expect different results
There are new innovative solutions out there but we need to work for them
Final 2015: 35,092 lives lost on roads, a 7.2% increase since 2014
In the first six months of 2016, we estimate that fatalities are up 10.4%
We have a media crisis on our hands
Pro-active vehicle safety
New Solutions to Human Behavioral Solutions - 94% of deaths from human decisions
27:00 Debbie Hersman, Director, National Safety Council (NSC)
Why are we here? Why now? What is your role? Zero is possible
We go for years in aviation with ZERO fatalities, because, to them… ZERO is the only acceptable answer
What needs to change is how we work together… we need commitment to the goal from everyone
We have to do things differently, we have to challenge the status quo, we have to make the changes we know must be made
We are in the midst of a public health crisis and it isn’t Zika
Collectively, we have been too passive in accepting the death toll on our nation’s roadways
100 fatalities per day is the equivalent of 2 regional jets crashing every day, that would be 14 plane crashes a week… if we had 14 plane crashes a week our hair (DOT) would be on fire and no one would set foot on an airplane. Why do we accept the fatalities that occur on our roadways? Because they happen one, or two, or three, or four at a time.
The U.S. is lagging behind our counter-parts in the world. According to the CDC, almost 20,000 lives could be saved each year if U.S. crash death (on roadways) equaled the rate of deaths in 19 other industrialized countries. 20,000 saved if we were just as good as countries who are in our same class.
We can do better. I know it. We just haven’t done it yet. But starting today we will.
Zero is possible, but you must own your number.
1:50:20 Leah Shahum, Vision Zero Network
At local level, people are:
Implementing complete street designs
Managing speed using automated speed enforcement, by lower speed limits,
Asking voters for resources to implement changes
We are increasingly recognizing at the local level this issue as a public health crisis
How does Vision Zero differ from the traditional traffic safety approach? A commitment to a Safe Systems Approach
Strengthening our data-driven approach to traffic safety, to use these data to do what matters most
Bringing more diverse stakeholders to the table
Most importantly, emphasizing attention on the systems in place which influence behavior:
Focusing more on the built environment
Focusing more on policies
These are the foundation of the transportation system which influence the choices people make
We are recognizing that we need to do more work around designing our streets with the safety priority and in the policies we set, particularly in the case of speed management
Policy makers and system designers have huge influence in speed. We know that speed is the greatest influence on the severity of crashes and injuries; we have to be talking about this and doing more on this front.
The tools exist, the strategies are out there. It is a matter of bringing forward the public and political energy to make the commitment to employ those tools.
In local efforts, public health is REALLY at the table in a way they haven’t been.
We are seeing a really strong horizontal collaboration in a great way. We also need to see more of the vertical collaboration (local, regional, state and federal)
We are building a culture of safety, and it starts here, this is the time.
3:17:00 Juan Martinez, New York City DOT Director of Strategic Initiatives
Was at a non-profit, Transportation Alternatives, 2011
Initial attempt to gain adoption of VisionZero was a loser, politically.
3 weeks after getting elected, Mayor de Blasio announces our city is pursuing of VisionZero
From the beginning, the mayor has been standing with survivors, and from the beginning, he has had a really clear moral urgency behind it.
At the NYC Vision Zero kickoff event, he announces he wants a plan in a month from NYC DOT, NYPD Commissioner, City Fleet, Dept of Health
Why did he come to this conclusion when other didn’t? I have thoughts on that:
The fact that the goal is big and ambitious was what intimidated other individuals, but it’s what sold Mayor de Blasio on the idea because he understands what’s big and ambition goal is how you get fast action, you get creative action, and that is what was recommended in the VisionZero Action Plan, and that’s what he got. A BOLD plan.
He knew that having that goal made those fights (in the Action Plan) winnable.
We would have been crushed if we didn’t have the major up there talking about why this was the city’s’ priority. Example: Speed camera program - over two million violations issued since 2014. That’s a huge, huge number. Good news is, at locations of speeding cameras, speeding drops by 50%. It works, it works really well. It is a surprisingly popular program.
Opposite example: Long Island speed camera program implemented, for 3 months, justified on the rationale “because we are broke.” They did not show they were being responsible and careful with the awesome responsibility they had. They didn’t have the VisionZero narrative behind them. Things that are politically popular become popular when you explain the context.
Other aspect that makes this transformative in New York City is the fact that it is the Mayor’s commitment and he is accountable for it. And so, he is expecting us to deliver on the promises we made.
City hall is deeply involved, they convene six inter-agency meetings per month, to report on are progress, to talk about progress towards implementation. But it is not just about collaboration, it goes a bit further, it is a real integration of agency efforts that is not possible until you are spending that much time in each other’s space. Small example: Side-guards, really effective at keeping people safe from turning trucks. It's a good thing for private companies to have them. Putting together DOT and City Fleet operators with private companies is a no-brainer, but before VisionZero, it would have been months and months. But it came together in an incredibly short amount of time.
In addition to Mayor’s political leadership, but the story of VisionZero in NYC is also about the family members who have been advocates and who have propelled us going forward. This is the Cohen family who are standing at the spot where there son was Adam was struck and killed by a driver who was going the speed limit. Other families identified as well. What these families did, they got together and formed this organization called Families for Safe Streets. They have been instrumental in every significant victory, legislative victory in particular in VisionZero.
I just talk about that quickly. When we started VisionZero Mayor Bloomberg just finished winning right before his term ended the ability to get the 20 speed cameras in NYC. These folks when up to our state capital and, that ten year fight, they increased the speed camera seven-fold through their advocacy in a few months. The city speed limit was set in state law, 50 years ago New York State said you cannot have a speed limit lower than 30 mph, you were PROHIBITED from doing that. Again, within a few months of concentrated organized advocacy, they convinced the state legislature to change their minds to allow the city to lower the speed limit to 25 mph.
Why were they successful when the best lobbyists, I spent two years going to Albany to get the speed limit cameras, and it was incredibly difficult, so why did they succeed when I failed? I think it is a couple things. One is, every human, and not necessarily the human in this room, but every other human is enumerate: we don’t understand numbers, we don’t understand orders of magnitude, we don’t understand percentiles. The 90% of pedestrians struck at 40 mph… like, that makes sense to us (e.g., the DOT data wonks), but we’re not “ordinary” humans. And beyond that, legislators are not ordinary humans. A lot of us have worked in legislative offices, right? We know legislators are lied to ALL DAY LONG. Every interest, every lobbyist says I’ve got the facts to convince you the world is exactly as I see it. So you have to believe everybody is shading the truth. Everybody is lying a little bit. Right. What’s the result? If you are trying to convince legislators using statistics and data, you are at a deficit, right? But what can they do?
Humans are not good with numbers, but we understand anguish. We understand grief. I could not understand the math, but I can understand Judy Banis’ face (a mother’s face) when she is explaining to me what happen to her daughter. And what happened to her daughter is not necessarily related to the speed limit, but that sudden grief, that absence, that anguish is that universal and it is a big part, an essential part of our success in VisionZero.
So, VisionZero is an ambitious goal, right, we’re taking advantage of trends that were present before we started, that city has been getting safer for quite some time. But, last year was the safest year in the city’s history. How did we get there, how did we get the speed limit lowered, how did we roll out the speed camera program and manage it so well? Three elements:
Data tell us that there is a problem, but the experience of a person who lost a loved one is what persuades real people that the problem is real.
Having strong executive leadership: As we are encouraging localities to get on-board VisionZero, there is a big role in guaranteeing that the local mayor is taking the commitment, not (only) the DOT (pointing to himself)
We should embrace the fact that VisionZero is a “hard” goal, and that’s what makes easier to sell. That idea is counter-intuitive in my experience, but it is true.
