What Is The Vision Zero Initiative
The Vision Zero Initiative was put in place by former Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti in 2014 in the hopes of eliminating traffic fatalities altogether. However noble this endeavor is, many have expressed doubts about the fulfillment of this goal. After all, the city of Los Angeles is infamous for its poor urban planning. The city itself is built around making transportation for vehicles easier, often at the expense of passersby. For this reason, pedestrian deaths are alarmingly high in the urban areas of Los Angeles, disproportionately affecting those who reside in places where access to sidewalks is limited.
To this day, the initiative is still being set in motion, and rightfully so. But Garcetti planned to fulfill this goal by 2025. By the way things are looking in Los Angeles County, the fulfillment of the said goal is getting bleaker and bleaker with each passing year.
After the COVID-19 lockdown, traffic fatalities are approaching new highs. As a matter of fact, it’s increased 58% since the Vision Zero initiative was first introduced in Los Angeles. This tells us that whatever reform was set in place to help facilitate Garcetti’s goal did not help. Not even in the slightest.
Los Angeles County now aims to eliminate traffic deaths by 2035. But will they be successful?
How The Vision Zero Initiative Started
The origins of the Vision Zero Initiative can be traced back in Sweden in the late-90s, and it has since then been replicated by numerous countries, including Canada, Netherlands, India, United Kingdom, among other places.
In 1997, Sweden set a goal of eliminating traffic fatalities altogether by the year 2020. They have pushed for reforms and built infrastructure geared to achieving this. But in spite of their best efforts, Sweden was unfortunately unable to reach zero traffic fatalities by 2020. Regardless, residents are still seeing some positive impact from this initiative, and this is shown by how much fatalities and injuries have gone down significantly from their figures in 1990. In 2020, they had 204 people die on the road, which is still a lot but is a definite improvement from the 772 deaths in 1990. They are pushing themselves to reduce these numbers even more by 2030, aiming to cut down road fatalities in half and serious injuries such (ie: Traumatic Brain Injury and Spinal Cord Injury) by 25%.
Los Angeles Vision Zero Initiative
Although Sweden didn’t achieve their initial goal, fact remains that the Vision Zero Initiative has done wonders in reducing serious injuries as well as traffic fatalities overtime, at least in their country.
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said in Los Angeles.
As mentioned previously, the data on bodily injuries and deaths since the initiative was introduced to Angelenos has only increased twofold. Vision Zero Initiative in Los Angeles isn’t impacting road safety in ways similar to Sweden, and while the dream of decreasing traffic fatalities to zero is admirable, it’s time to regroup and rethink how the city can eliminate the issues people face on the road. Clearly, the current reforms they have in place are not working, and if Los Angeles wants a chance at actually fulfilling the goals they have in place by 2035, then they need to do more.
Call Omega Law Group
With so much contention surrounding the effectiveness of the Vision Zero Initiative in reducing traffic fatalities, you need to arm yourself with the best personal injury lawyer in the event you get into a dreadful accident. Fortunately, Omega Law Group has your back. Visit our Contact Us page, or give us a call at 866-942-3881