Vision Zero attempting to lower number of Austinites killed in crashes
AUSTIN, Texas - On average, one Austinite is killed in a crash every five days and one is seriously injured in a crash every 20 hours. An effort called Vision Zero is hoping to turn those numbers into zero.
"Nobody wants their family member or their friends to be injured or killed in a car crash so the only acceptable number is zero," said Lewis Leff, Transportation Safety Officer for Vision Zero.
Vision Zero is a strategy that was adopted by the City of Austin six years ago to look at the stats and work towards ending traffic-related fatalities and serious injuries in Austin. It is currently led by the Austin Transportation Department.
"At the end of the day, we're trying to get to zero because these are people and that's what the ultimate goal is to save lives and reduce these life-changing injuries over time," said Leff.
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In 2020, there were over 13,055 crashes reported. Of that, 434 people reported a serious injury and 92 people died. "That is an increase of about 5% in fatalities, but a decrease of over 20% in suspected serious injuries," said Leff.
Out of the 92 people who died, 48 were motorists, 34 pedestrians, 6 motorcyclists, and 4 bicyclists. Vision Zero takes that information and creates strategies to make driving, walking, and cycling safer like more sidewalks, protected bike lanes, and lowering speed limits in certain high-risk areas.
"The last couple years, we've really been focused on interventions, traffic safety countermeasures that would address some of the priority locations, and also some of the conditions that we know lead to the most severe crashes," said Leff.
Leff says most fatal crashes happen in the evening and early morning hours, and the biggest cause is speed. "We do know that speed is always a factor in these vehicle crashes, particularly with pedestrians and bicyclists," he said.
Leff says it won’t be easy to meet the goal of zero deaths and injuries on the road, but it isn't unattainable. "We've got a public health epidemic that's been going on for years. Over 35,000 people nationally, get killed on our streets. and these are, again, preventable crashes. We can design our system to operate more safely and achieve that goal of zero," he said.