How are these tragedies preventable?
Every year Seattle has over 10,000 car crashes. Of those crashes, 28 people die and 180 are seriously injured on average. These deaths and serious injuries are preventable.
In 2015, the City of Seattle launched Vision Zero - a local version of the international street safety movement, to eliminate serious injuries and prevent deaths due to car collisions. Unfortunately, the city hasn’t made progress toward shrinking traffic deaths to zero. In fact, Seattle set a 15-year high in traffic deaths last year and is on track for one of the deadliest years on record.
The single most important thing the city can do is redesign dangerous streets. 80% of people who are killed while walking in Seattle are run over on streets with more than one lane of traffic in each direction, and 80% of people who are killed while biking are run over where there is no bike lane. By redesigning our streets to be safer, with sidewalks, bike lanes, crosswalks, and other features we can keep everybody safe.
Earlier this year we shared a letter with the Seattle Department of Transportation offering a path forward to get the program back on track. With no traction being made this year in reducing deaths from car collisions, we’ve created a memorial project to bring attention to this issue.
WDR 2023 Memorial Silhouettes Photo Album
Map of the Memorial Silhouettes in Seattle
Get Involved in Making Streets Safer
Together we can make our streets safer. Join the movement by adding your name to the form below.