Houston Police officers investigate the aftermath of a 2017 crash that killed a pedestrian.
Photo by Godofredo A. Vasquez/Houston Chronicle via Getty Images
A Traffic Engineer Hits Back at His Profession
A new book argues that road design, not driver error, is largely responsible for the surge in US traffic deaths among pedestrians and bicyclists.
With US pedestrian and cyclist deaths recently hitting 40-year highs, safety advocates increasingly point to a hidden villain: the transportation engineering field itself. Despite a parade of cities declaring their commitment to Vision Zero (a total elimination of crash fatalities), such goals can seem unattainable in neighborhoods crisscrossed with high-speed arterials and lacking safe spaces for people walking and biking.
Those suspecting that dangerous street design is a root cause of the US road safety crisis will find ample supporting material in Killed by a Traffic Engineer: Shattering the Delusion that Science Underlies Our Transportation System (Island Press, June 4), a new book from University of Colorado-Denver civil engineering professor Wesley Marshall.