I was biking back from the supermarket on New Year's Eve when a driver in a blue Fiesta overtook me dangerously close. I caught up to her at the traffic light and saw why: she was texting. Every year, drivers just like that one kill thousands of people.
The holiday break was marred by two incidents of terrorism involving motor vehicles. The first was in a Christmas market last month in Magdeburg, Germany, where a driver plowed through a crowd of shoppers, killing six people and seriously injuring scores more. The other was on Bourbon Street in New Orleans. On New Year's Day, a driver murdered 14 people.
Over the break, long-time safe-streets advocate Fran Taylor emailed me a Washington Post feature that tracked several other incidents in which cars were intentionally rammed into crowds in China, Canada, Spain, and elsewhere. World leaders, of course, condemn these incidents when they involve terrorists. The New Orleans driver apparently had ISIS sympathies. In Germany, the perpetrator was reportedly anti-Muslim.
It's proper to condemn these incidents. But I wish state and federal leaders would take a step back from asking what motivated these evil people and instead work on overall harm reduction. I think people forget that the reason to look for a motive is to try and predict behavior and track down potential accomplices to prevent future attacks. Beyond that, once someone speeds into a crowd, I no longer really care what motivates them. The carnage is the same. And yet trying to figure out the perpetrator ideology is the central focus of the mainstream reporting.
First, it has to be said: these attacks underscore the perversion of reality one finds in American driving regulations and the general attitude towards vulnerable road users. For example, the California DMV manual actually says "Bicyclists have the same rights and responsibilities [emphasis added] as motorists." How did it ever get into the zeitgeist, let alone traffic manuals, that a pedestrian or a cyclist has or should have the same responsibilities as the driver of a two-to-five-ton machine that can do over 100 mph? When a terrorist manages to kill 14 people with a bicycle, then DMVs and law enforcement agencies can talk about "shared responsibility."
Speaking of responsibility, or lack of, recall SB-961, a 2024 bill that would have required speed-limiting devices on cars sold in California. How many people were condemned to death when our lawmakers decided to listen to auto-industry lobbyists instead of safety experts on the importance of that legislation? It was first watered down from requiring real speed control to just making a "ding" sound when the driver was significantly over the limit—and even then it was ultimately vetoed by Governor Newsom. Such devices could prevent crashes, save untold lives, and even make intentional massacre-by-car attacks more difficult.
Over a hundred people die every single day in America in motor vehicle crashes that have nothing to do with ISIS or any other ideology. That number could easily be cut in half if the U.S. made it a priority to do so.
Want to save lives? How about a new speed governor bill that isn't gutted and actually gets signed by the governor of the state with the largest car market? How about cities install concrete protection and traffic engineers build streets to limit speeds and promote careful driving, rather than designing to maximize automobile throughput and encourage reckless driving? How about limiting SUV sizes and trying to control the car-bloat that's killing more and more people? How about mandating cell phone operating systems that lock the phone when they sense the motion of a car? How about enforcing laws such as no-texting-while driving with real penalties, including revoking the licenses of violators?
The woman in the blue Fiesta finally looked up from her cell phone and noticed me glaring at her while we were stopped at the intersection. "You're so busy texting, you have no idea you nearly killed me," I shouted. She rolled down her window: "Get away from my car before I fucking run you over."
The fact remains that the run-of-the-mill dangerous driver does far, far more collective harm than extremists driving into crowds. I wish law-enforcement, politicians, and others responsible for our safety would take all murderous and dangerous driving seriously.
