Status Updates From Killed by a Traffic Enginee...

Thrilled to add this book to the elite cadre of texts written by liberals who not only identify a problem correctly but also offer plausible and actionable solutions in a concise manner. Marshall calls for a breaking down of the silos around traffic engineering and pleas for more environmental science, public health, and sociology courses to be added to civil engineering degree programs.

"Looking just at kids between the ages of 6 and 15, Oslo has had zero road deaths for at least the last 20 years." Great example of how someone else's good news can depress you.

The hardest part of the book so far concerns the assignment of blame in traffic fatalities. A motorist can be found liable for hitting a cow; but most times in most places in America, a pedestrian will be found liable for a driver hitting them.

There are some eye-watering case studies in this section, but they exist with a purpose. Those with the power to *assign* blame have the actual power to improve road safety.

An examination of how "human error" is constructed in measurements of collisions, morbidly and mortality. We're setting drivers up for failure with some of our design choices and then pin all the blame on them when those design choices kill someone. Example given: "permissive signaling," where pedestrians and drivers are both given the green light, promotes driver on pedestrian collision

Some exploration into the flawed methodologies that shape our roadways. The mythology of the safety of "vehicular cycling," i.e. riding your bike in car traffic, was borne from a single anecdotal study conducted on a single bike ride. The failure to differentiate fender-benders from fatal accidents when seeking to reduce collisions sometimes has bad outcomes.

In the introduction, the author promises to ruin driving for readers. Notable statistic cited: an estimated 13 million hospitalizations and 40 million years of life lost annually, globally, from traffic collisions.

Rethinking road design