Safe Roads for All

NEW YORK – A new report released today by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Policing Project at New York University School of Law finds that the United States’ current approach to traffic safety has failed to reduce roadway deaths, while imposing significant financial and human costs on communities. The report, Safe Roads for All: Evidence-Based Strategies for Keeping Our Roadways Safe, calls for a transformation in road safety policy to one that more effectively advances safety and equity. “Using traffic stops as a policing tool is completely ineffective in terms of reducing crime or advancing public safety, and excessive stops are a true threat to civil rights and liberties,” said Emily Reina Dindial, senior policy counsel at the ACLU. “We should not have to choose between safe roads and our constitutional rights, and this report makes clear that there are myriad road safety strategies that achieve both. Lawmakers must commit to these smarter safety strategies.” Each year, more than 40,000 people are killed and more than 2 million injured in preventable car crashes. Despite a growing body of evidence demonstrating the effectiveness of common-sense infrastructural and road design measures, traffic safety strategies in this country have largely focused instead on individual enforcement through high-volume police stops and ticketing. The report finds that this approach fails to prevent injuries and deaths from car crashes and in fact puts people at risk of harmful encounters with police. Ticketing practices that prioritize revenue generation over road safety also trap millions of people in inescapable cycles of fines, fees, and debt. "We owe it to our communities to use the most effective and equitable strategies to prioritize safe mobility for all. The ideas in this report can help us get there," said Leah Shahum, Founder and Executive Director of the Vision Zero Network. The report highlights a number of alternative approaches that can more effectively reduce crashes and save lives, such as street design improvements, incentives for vehicular safety and safe driving, thoughtful use of technology, and shifts in police responses to minor traffic issues. “Pretextual traffic enforcement is an outdated political relic from the War on Drugs that doesn't make our roads or our communities any safer,” said Scarlet Neath, Director of Reimagining Public Safety at the Policing Project. “If lawmakers are serious about preventing avoidable traffic deaths, they should prioritize evidence-based policies - like speed reduction policies and smarter roadway design - that have a proven safety impact.” The report offers a roadmap for policymakers at the local, state, and federal levels, including recommendations to: Limit incentives for, and discretion to, conduct non-safety stops Restrict ticketing practices and/or potential revenue from ticketing practices. Reduce speeds and crashes using roadway redesign and speed reduction policies. Pilot models for civilian traffic enforcement. The full report is available at: https://www.aclu.org/documents/safe-roads-for-all