Angie Schmitt - Right of Way: Race, Class, and the Silent Epidemic of Pedestrian Deaths in America

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Angie Schmitt

Copyright 2020 Angie Schmitt

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher: Island Press, Suite 650, 2000 M Street, NW, Washington, DC 20036

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020933352

Keywords: autonomous vehicle, criminalization, crosswalk, Families for Safe Streets, infrastructure, jaywalking, Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, pedestrian, racism, speed, speed cameras, self-driving cars, SUV, the Sun Belt, traffic safety, traffic violence, Vision Zero

Our complacency is killing us.

Deborah Hersman, CEO, National Safety Council

The writing portion of this book was completed in early February 2020, before the COVID-19 pandemic took hold in the United States. In other words, it was written in what people have already started referring to as the Before. The publishing process is such that there is about a six-month lag between the completion of writing and the first sale, so I want to briefly address this consciousness-altering event that took place in between.

Though the pandemic will likely impact the problem of pedestrian deaths in many ways, at least at the onset of the crisis, it is difficult to predict the full extent. As a result of the reduction in commuting trips and leisure car trips, I would expect the number of pedestrian deaths will almost certainly decline dramatically this year. If we have a recession, which seems assured, that may be true for a longer period. However, mass quarantine has reduced congestion and increased speeding in many crowded metro areas, just as more people are out walking and biking, producing potentially dangerous conditions.

One thing that is all but assured right now is that this pandemic will bring Americans much closer to death and force us to consider some of the ethical trade-offs we make when it comes to the protection of human life. Early in the crisis, many right-wing figures, including President Trump, used traffic deathssome 37,000 annuallyto make the case that some amount of loss of life is an acceptable price to pay for a strong economy. (In the case of the pandemic, were talking truly staggering figures.) It was a bad analogy in a lot of ways, but it helped emphasize the strange tolerance we have in our culture for traffic deaths and how they can desensitize us to other forms of cruelty and injustice.

It is also worth noting that while a bad economy may hide them, it wont fix the problems addressed in the book. Before the global pandemic, we had settled into a new normal where pedestrian deaths were consistently about 50% higher than they had been a generation before. So without a change in some of the contributing factors (vehicle styles and weights, engineering conventions, demographic trends), when the economy rebounds, I would expect to see the same pattern emerge. Without addressing them we will see perhaps tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths over the next decade or two.

At this point we can only hope that the devastation from this illness will be limited and we will emerge with a renewed sense of care for our fellow citizens and their health and well-being. This book, I hope can help planners and overlapping disciplines put the values of care, empathy, and caution over habit and convenience to save lives in the same way that we are taking on this terrible global crisis.

March 2020

As one of the nations leading voices and thought leaders in transportation equity, I have devoted my entire career to creating equitable, healthy, and sustainable communities. In doing so, I have been methodical and intentional in the use of my power, my pen, and my privilege to highlight and humanize the disparities and injustices faced by historically disadvantaged population groups in the United States.

As a racialized black planner and street-level researcher, I am often called upon by many in the industry to offer ways to improve pedestrian and bicycle safety in North America. Although most of the brainstorming focuses on the normative experiences of the general population, I am deliberate in encouraging additional analyzes across varying and intersecting social identities such as income, race, ethnicity, ability, sex, gender, sexual orientation, and religious affiliation.

At the nexus of this unwavering fight for justice and truth-telling is the genesis of my appreciation and admiration for my dear sister Angie Schmitt. I have always known my sister Angie, racialized as white, to commit herself to speaking courageously and unapologetically through multiple platforms about the inequities and injustices facing pedestrians, bicyclists, and transit users along Americas roadways. In this dynamic new book, Right of Way, she uses her vigor and thirst for justice to challenge the status quo and traditional norms and narratives. From spatial inequality and inequities to systemic and institutional racism to thematic and episodic news framing to climate change and autonomous vehicles, she sheds LED lights on the epidemic of traffic violence in the United States and across the globe. In doing so, she eloquently balances the fierce urgency of now with the supreme importance of humanizing every victim in every story in the book. She also graciously and unselfishly uses her purpose, power, and privilege to do as the great Dr. Cornel West once said: You must let suffering speak, if you want to hear the truth.