This is not just a traffic safety problem; it’s also an economic one. If you can’t afford a car, you must rely on public transportation and human power. You're forced to engage with a dangerous landscape. Fletcher would like to get an e-bike but worries that he’d just have a more expensive repair when it got hit like his other bikes: “It’s just gonna get destroyed, right?”
Meanwhile, he’s had repair and medical costs from multiple crashes, including one where he suffered a wrist injury that kept him from working for several weeks.
Danny Williams analyzes the scene of the crash with a level of detail that comes from leading a car-light lifestyle, being a citizen advocate at transportation and metropolitan planning organization hearings, and reading Strong Towns: “Look at the radius of this curve. This is another one built like an on-ramp even though it’s in the middle of town. So it's built to encourage people to go through here at speed, [instead of encouraging them] to stop, look at the light, and make a careful turn to the right.”
The police report for the crash was filed several days later. The driver was unlicensed but was not cited for the crash, with police assessing that the status of the light and walk signal was a matter of one operator’s word against another. Despite the frustrating process, Danny thinks it’s important for crash victims to register what happened to them. "Crashes are wildly underreported because, if you can, you're going to just limp away and go home because [it seems like] there's no point to hang around. We only hung around to make sure we were a statistic that was noted on that corner.”
Even if reporting crashes to the authorities doesn't prompt immediate change, crash victims are not helpless. Anyone can conduct a Crash Analysis Studio, regardless of their level of experience or expertise. This free course will teach you how to analyze a dangerous location and create a report with concrete safety recommendations. Giving this report to local officials can help them shake off their own feelings of helplessness and take immediate action to make your city’s streets safer.