Top 10 Most Dangerous Cities for Speed Related Fatalities

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Safe places to walk and bike are critical for Latino and all kids to grow up healthy.

Sadly, the U.S. lags far behind other countries in traffic safety. Traffic crashes are one of the leading causes of preventable death in the U.S., thus many families avoid walking and biking. Given the inequity in access to safe streets and the disparities in fatalities and injuries among minorities, traffic safety is both a public health and a social justice issue.

The National Coalition for Safer Roads (NCSR) and the Vision Zero Network launched an interactive map that showcases the over 59,000 speed-related fatalities that occurred on U.S, roads between 2010 and 2015, identifying city and even street-by-street locations where each incident occurred. Find your city as well as the top 10 most dangerous cities speed related fatalities on the map.

Speed management is a critical strategy to improve safety.

Communities can choose safety over speed. Not only would elevating safety over speed save thousands of lives each year, but it would help to build a culture of health and physical activity.

Spread the word. Start talking to community leaders, city planners, and elected officials about Vision Zero and designing safe streets.

According to the Vision Zero Network, effective strategies for managing speed fall into three categories:

1. Designing and retrofitting roadways to calm traffic and encourage safe behavior that prioritizes the preservation of human life. Changing the way streets work isn’t easy, but it’s by far the most effective way to improve safety and the intuitive usability of the street. Political leadership, community support, and design know-how are all essential to reshaping the built environment to be more forgiving, easy to navigate, and safe for all.
2. Lowering speed limits to levels where the consequence of crashes is less likely to be fatal. The State of Massachusetts & Seattle and other jurisdictions across the country have recently passed resolutions enabling greater local control of speed limits in multi-modal urban environments.
3. Using equitably implemented automated safety camera technology to discourage dangerous speeds. Washington DC, NYC and Chicago and other cities all have promising records of saving lives with safety cameras, or automated speed enforcement.