Ciudades fracasan en reducir las muertes por accidentes de tránsito

LOS ANGELES, California. — Kris Edwards was hoping at home with a friend of his wife, Erika “Tilly” Edwards, to win a ceremony; but she never went to the house that had already purchased four days before. Alrededor, on June 29 at 9 p.m., a runaway conductor atropelled and was brought to Tilly when he drove to attend a fund-raising event in Hollywood.

“I want to find the form of becoming alive. And the hardest thing is not knowing for what,” Edwards said of his wife’s death.

During safety campaigns by local, state and federal authorities—like the global Visión Cero initiative that sought to eliminate transportation fatalities—fatalities in the United States increased by 20 percent over a decade: from 32,744 in 2014 to 39,345 in 2024, according to data from the Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

Although deaths have decreased from their highest point in 2021 (43,230), the current figure is still higher than in those years.

Since the covid-19 pandemic, the Pew Research Center has identified a deterioration in states’ driving habits, with improvements in driving like protective mode or under the effects of alcohol, something that protects the safety of the streets as a public health shock.

It is also assured that the technology could significantly reduce these deaths, the menu properties in the face of industry resistance, and the Trump administration is at the center of its activities in cars without driving as a form of innovation and improvement of public safety.

“Every day there are 20 people who sign up and don’t come into their homes,” said Adam Snider, attorney for the Governors Highway Safety Association, which represents state safety offices.

In some cities, roads are more dangerous than violent crime. Los Angeles, San Francisco and Houston are some of the major cities now reporting more deaths due to transit accidents caused by homicides. In 2024, the Los Angeles Police Department recorded 268 homicide deaths and 302 traffic crash deaths, the second year in a row that shock victims outnumbered homicide victims, according to Crosstown LA, a community media outlet without lucro fines.

San Francisco reported 42 transit crash deaths and 35 homicides in 2024. In Houston, about 345 people were killed in collisions and 322 were victims of homicides.

“Simply put, the United States is in the midst of a highway safety emergence,” David Harkey, president of the Instituto de Seguros para la Seguridad en las Carreteras (Insurance Institute for Highway Safety), said during a hearing in the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee. Harkey said that among 29 high-income countries, the United States ranks last in security. “This increase is -repito, no is- a global trend. The United States is an exception.”

In January 2017, then-former Eric Garcetti, along with other 13 city leaders, compromised the implementation of the Cero Vision Action Plan and the elimination of transit accident deaths in Los Angeles by 2025.

Without an embargo, deaths were increased.

A hearing released in April, commissioned by the City Administrative Office, concluded that enthusiasm for the program was weakened by the City Council and that the project had suffered due to “the pandemic, personal conflicts, a lack of total compromise with its implementation, facts that should be administered and problems to escalate.” The information also points to a conflict of interest between city departments and inconsistent reversals in the city’s most dangerous corridors.

Attorney Karen Bass’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Last year, California State Senator Scott Wiener proposed a bill that had required all new vehicles sold in the state to include an “intelligent speed assist” system, software that prevents vehicles from exceeding the speed limit by more than 10 million. hour.

But the plan was weakened by opposition from the auto industry and some lawmakers who considered government extralimitation. Ultimately, it was considered by Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who argued that a mandate for state intervention in federal security assessments was underway.

Meanwhile, the Alianza para la Innovación Automotriz (Alliance for Automotive Innovation), an influential auto industry lobbying group, this year demanded from the federal government an emergency auto brake standard implemented during Joe Biden’s administration. The request is pending in federal court as the Department of Transportation revises the rule. Even before Donald Trump assumed his second term, the alliance sent a letter to the president-elect seeking his commitment to defending consumer voting freedom.

During the current Trump administration, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has prioritized the development of autonomous vehicles by proposing extensive regulatory reforms to test and launch driverless cars. “Federal motor vehicle safety standards are written for human-operated vehicles and must be updated for autonomous vehicles,” Peter Simshauser, NHTSA’s senior counsel, said in September, announcing the modernization task, which includes waiving certain safety standards. “Eliminate these requirements by reducing costs and improving security.”

Without an embargo, some Democratic lawmakers have criticized the elimination of safety standards, calling it a mistake because it is possible to implement new rules without removing existing protections. NHTSA officials did not respond to requests for comment on these concerns.

Safety advocates say that if they don’t continue to pass regulations for conventional vehicles, they are responsible for the speeding and human error that causes deaths, driving the push for driverless cars.

“We need to collaborate between the federal, state and local sectors; the public and private sector; and also the general public,” said Snider, of the Asociación de Seguridad Vial de los Gobernadores. “We need only the people who manage to be involved.”

Sometimes police identify the driver of a Mercedes-Benz G-Wagen directly involved in Tilly’s death. Authorities charged Davontay Robins with gross negligent manslaughter while operating a vehicle, gross misdemeanor hit-and-run and driving with a suspended license due to condensation previa by drunk driving. Robins has declared innocence on all charges and is at large under his fiancée.

Now Kris Edwards found it in the garden behind the house he shared with his wife. Since Tilly’s death, there have been problems sleeping, fatigue, loss of appetite and needing a stick to walk. Your doctors attribute these symptoms to the way the brain responds in a duel.

“No solo,” he said. “Pero siento siento solo, dans esta casa grande y vacía sans mi compañera”.

Edwards hoped he would vindicate himself for his wife’s death, but he wouldn’t be sure if the taxes would have a digest. Quiere that your death means something: the safest, busiest and quietest streets when entering and exiting your cars on transited streets.

“I want the death of my wife to have publicity for which you are confident and bajan keep her, even for a moment,” he added. “All of this can happen in an instant.”