Dear Supporters of our Police Reform Project, For those who have been following us for a while, you have seen our increased messaging on safety issues, and how pretext stops do not increase either public safety or road safety. These conclusions are supported by a report issued in October of 2024, by the Thurgood Marshall Institute of the Legal Defense Fund, titled, “A Community-Centered Public Health Approach to Traffic Safety.1” This report includes an extensive analysis of pretext stops and road and community safety. We will take the next two or three newsletters to discuss some of its findings. In the report, Sandhya Kajeepeta, PhD, notes that traffic safety has declined in recent years. The statistics paint a stark picture of the harms caused by traffic accidents. She notes: Traffic safety is a critical public health problem and a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in the United States. Contrary to expectations, the nation’s roads continue to get more and more deadly. Since its nadir in 2011, the number of fatal traffic crashes in the United States has increased by about thirty-two percent.5 In 2022 alone, nearly 43,000 people died from a traffic crash nationwide. Traffic crashes remain one of the leading causes of death for Americans under the age of fifty-five. Such crashes are responsible for more years of life lost than other major public health dangers like diabetes, liver disease, and homicide. And for every traffic fatality, there are thousands more traffic-related injuries that impact people’s quality of life, strain the health care system, and lead to lost productivity. Every year, about 2.5 million to three million people are injured from traffic crashes. Evidently, getting in a vehicle or simply crossing the street are among the most dangerous daily activities in the United States. (Report, page 4.) Dr. Kajepeeta reviews the scientific literature, concluding that based on the data, “existing evidence suggests that police traffic enforcement does not effectively reduce traffic fatalities or crime.” (Report, page 16) One aspect of this report that we had not discussed before was the disproportionately larger share of injuries and fatalities suffered by Black pedestrians, cyclists and motorists. Due to a variety of reasons, including narrower sidewalks, poorer lighting, poorer street infrastructure, fewer marked crosswalks and high-visibility striping on roads, intersection control features and signage, and more high-capacity roads through neighborhoods, along with less access to public transportation, roads in communities with a greater percentage of non-white residents are less safe. And this results in disproportionately larger numbers of injuries and fatalities. Black communities are disproportionately impacted by unsafe roads and traffic injuries. A recent study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine found that Black people face higher rates of traffic fatalities per mile traveled than white people. Compared to white people, the fatality rate per mile traveled for Black people was 4.5 times higher while cycling, 2.2 times higher while walking, and 1.8 times higher while occupying a vehicle. The authors of the study posited that these findings provide evidence of structural racism in the transportation safety sector and could be explained by systemic underinvestment in pedestrian and cycling infrastructure (e.g., wide and well-maintained sidewalks and bike lanes) in majority-Black neighborhoods, as well as racial discrimination in health care and emergency response. Similar racial disparities have also been observed for pedestrian-related traffic injuries. A 2020 study demonstrated that hospital admission rates for pedestrian injuries were 1.2 times higher for Black people compared to white people. The proportion of traffic injuries that led to extreme and major loss of function was highest among Black people (34.5%) and lowest among white people (30.2%). (Report, page 4.) So while traffic safety is clearly a major concern for all of us, it is a greater concern for those of us who are Black and brown. But increasing traffic enforcement in the way we have historically responded is not a solution to traffic fatalities and deaths. And as we have noted previously, and will discuss in future newsletters, the findings in Dr. Kajepeeta’s report, including harms caused by secondary stops, demand a new approach that responds to the need for greater safety while not causing harm to those most in need of improvements. (For a sneak peak at suggested solutions, read Dr. Kajeepeta’s report, downloadable as a pdf.) Thank you for your continued interest and support. Katie Blum, Esq. Jill Paperno, Esq. |
