Check out Jason Wang’s Dec 26th op-ed “Build Safer Streets Now” published in We-Ha.com. Jason is a West Hartford resident, advocate for safer walking and biking, parent of young children, and a physician at UConn Hospital. He writes:
“…the idea that we simply need to tell drivers to drive better is a totally wrongheaded strategy. We are facing a systemic problem. Problematic individual driving behaviors are largely symptoms of a failing system. Rising roadway fatalities is a uniquely American problem among developed nations. We need to stop focusing on blaming individual actions. It would be intellectually dishonest to insist that our uniquely high American road death rate is somehow a product of uniquely bad drivers. Bad drivers exist everywhere. Distracted and impaired drivers exist everywhere. Distracted and impaired pedestrians exist everywhere, too. Yet, somehow people are dying on our roads at much higher rates than the UK, Germany, Canada, Japan, or France. Distracted driving and roadway deaths are actually symptoms of a transportation system that is rigidly designed to move cars around for as many trips as possible, as quickly as possible, with the least amount of effort possible.”
