It's Time To Learn From Crashes and Create Safer Streets Today
Throughout the month of October, we here at Strong Towns have been focusing our efforts on communicating what we’ve learned from 18 months of conducting Crash Analysis Studios. We wrote an official report, held briefings for our members and Local Conversations, hosted a national press conference, and held a briefing for local officials.
Today, we’re releasing the executive summary of the report. We do this as a reminder that we need your help to change the common knowledge around car crashes. We cannot make the change needed without you. Read this piece and, when you’re ready to change the status quo, visit strongtowns.org/crashstudio to find the path that is right for you. If you need help, contact studio@strongtowns.org.
Beyond Blame: How Cities Can Learn From Crashes To Create Safer Streets Today
Every fatal crash has something to teach us. That is the animating insight of this report.
In North America, nearly all car crashes are attributed to human error. Yet, there are always many contributing factors that remain unidentified.
Currently, there is no widely adopted approach to studying and learning from traumatic crashes.
Local leaders must adopt such an approach in response to the rising number of auto-related deaths.
Every day in North America, people are killed in automobile crashes. In the U.S. alone, the number is over 40,000 annually. Emergency response personnel are generally tasked with documenting what happened. They interview witnesses, draw schematics and check boxes.
The primary purpose of these efforts is to assist in assigning blame. Courts adjudicate and insurance companies pay claims based on the findings in police reports. Sometimes, statistics from all those checked boxes prompt an institutional response, such as national campaigns to educate drivers on the dangers of texting while driving. Beyond that, it is rare that anything more is done, even for a fatal crash.
The medical profession uses clinical mortality reviews to study and learn from adverse outcomes. The National Transportation Safety Board has a similar commitment to study each plane crash. Yet, despite the level of urgency, there is no institutional response to gain insight from automobile crashes.
This is not because there is nothing to learn. And it’s not because we lack the capacity to conduct this kind of review. The most immediate obstacle to action is the lack of an established practice for analyzing and learning from fatal car crashes.
In 2023, Strong Towns began conducting monthly studio sessions to analyze crashes. These Crash Analysis Studios were broadcast live through Zoom so that anyone could watch them. In each session, technical and nontechnical experts reviewed data. They examined photos and video of the scene. They worked to identify the multiple factors, large and small, that contributed to each crash. A report detailing the findings was prepared and made publicly available for each Studio session.
The immediate goal of this exercise was to demonstrate a process that cities can emulate to learn from their own crashes. These overlooked and underappreciated insights can be used by local leaders to improve traffic safety. A side effect of the process was the discovery of some recurring factors. These facets were noted numerous times, despite the crashes’ otherwise unique characteristics.
In the first 18 studio sessions, participants repeatedly documented the following contributing factors:
High-speed road design in urban areas, where the design of the street facilitated traffic speeds above what is known to be safe (noted in 16 sessions).
Design that inadequately accounts for people walking and biking, particularly in areas where street designers were clearly aware of the presence of people biking and walking but chose to prioritize high vehicle speeds over safety (noted in 14 sessions).
Dangerous intersection design, where streets were designed to speed — and sometimes even accelerate — vehicles into areas with high conflict potential (noted in 13 sessions).
Visibility and lighting issues, where the lighting used to illuminate driving areas obscured people biking and walking in glare and shadow (noted in 12 sessions).
Deviation from the designer’s intent, where unsafe conditions unintentionally crept into the design during or after construction (noted in 4 sessions).
These findings prompt Strong Towns, along with our partner participants in this effort, to make the following recommendations to city officials and local leaders across North America:
Make safety a core organizational responsibility by empowering a person or team to intervene in established city processes on behalf of traffic safety.
Establish a Crash Response Team to gather data following a fatal or traumatic crash.
Establish a Crash Analysis Studio to identify and learn from the many factors that cause a crash.
Use temporary traffic control devices to respond quickly to dangerous situations.
Update local street standards to prioritize safety instead of traffic speed and throughput.
Conduct bike and walk audits for all projects to provide the same level of insight and awareness to the safety of people biking and walking as is routinely applied to people driving.
Since the end of World War II, American traffic safety officials have dramatically reduced the rate of injury and death from auto crashes. Yet, there is a persistent amount of trauma we have been unable to eliminate or even meaningfully reduce. It’s not from lack of effort or resources.
To close that final gap, local officials need to take the lead. They need to begin learning from the fatal crashes occurring on their own streets. That knowledge can be put to work immediately to build local streets that are truly safe.
We have the ability to learn something from each crash. The only thing we need now is the desire to obtain that knowledge.
Are you ready to learn from the crashes in your community? Whether you’re an elected official, technical professional or concerned citizen, we can help you find the right path forward. Click here to learn more.
Charles Marohn (known as “Chuck” to friends and colleagues) is the founder and president of Strong Towns and the bestselling author of “Escaping the Housing Trap: The Strong Towns Response to the Housing Crisis.” With decades of experience as a land use planner and civil engineer, Marohn is on a mission to help cities and towns become stronger and more prosperous. He spreads the Strong Towns message through in-person presentations, the Strong Towns Podcast, and his books and articles. In recognition of his efforts and impact, Planetizen named him one of the 15 Most Influential Urbanists of all time in 2017 and 2023.