"Vision Zero is a road safety philosophy that originated in Sweden in the 1990s and has since been adopted by cities across the United States and Europe. Its premise is straightforward: traffic deaths and serious injuries are preventable and can therefore be eliminated. With the right street design, traffic enforcement, and public awareness, everyone can get around safely."
"The problem is that severe crashes are a catastrophe so routine that it barely registers in the news cycle. Americans have been conditioned to think traffic violence is inevitable. One outcome of that conditioning is that people will campaign against transportation projects that improve safety."
"We don't vote on airplane safety. Imagine being handed a survey when you board a plane: Should the airline prioritize your arrival time or the structural integrity of the landing gear? That would be absurd. We trust aviation engineers to design safe aircraft."
Over 100 Americans daily suffer severe injuries or death in traffic crashes, with countless others indirectly affected. Vision Zero, originating in Sweden during the 1990s, establishes that traffic deaths and serious injuries are preventable through appropriate street design, traffic enforcement, and public awareness. However, severe crashes have become so routine they barely register in news coverage, conditioning Americans to view traffic violence as inevitable. This normalization creates resistance to safety-focused transportation projects. Unlike aviation safety, which engineers control without public voting, transportation safety improvements are often subjected to democratic votes where people campaign against safety enhancements, revealing a fundamental misalignment between public perception and evidence-based safety practices.
Read at Fast Company
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