Each year, the World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims honors those who have been killed and injured on roads around the globe — 1.35 million people each year worldwide.

On the week leading up to November 20th, Streets Are For Everyone (SAFE) is speaking out with crash victims, street safety organizations, community members, faith leaders, elected officials, and dignitaries from across the country and globe to REMEMBER, SUPPORT, and ACT.

We add our voice to the urgent call for change to address the heartbreaking cost of traffic crashes.

This year’s World Day of Remembrance takes on extra urgency as the number of people dying and severely injured in preventable traffic crashes in the U.S. is rising at an alarming rate. In 2021, 42,915 people died in traffic crashes in the U.S. — a 10.5% increase from 2020 and an 18% increase from 2019 according to the NHTSA. And 2022 is shaping up to be even more deadly, with an estimated 7% increase in people killed for the same quarter in 2021. This would be the highest number of quarter fatalities since 2002. (add local statistics here from Damian’s press release)

Experts have demonstrated that this is a preventable crisis — Zero is Possible — the U.S. can and must do more to prevent deaths and severe injuries on our roadways. We can prioritize safety over speed. We can design roadways, sidewalks, and bikeways and set policies that ensure safe mobility for all.

As communities across the country hold vigils, memorial walks, bike rides, faith leader summons, and somber displays of candles, shoes, and even body bags intended to represent the lives lost in preventable traffic crashes, we join in the demand for action.

This week leading up to World Day of Remembrance, SAFE worked with Councilmember Nithya Raman’s office to light Los Angeles City Hall yellow to commemorate World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims on November 20, 2022. 245 people have been killed due to traffic violence in the City of Los Angeles this year, with over 1,000 people seriously injured — a significant rise since the previous year. City Hall will be lit for the nights of November 14th through November 17th to honor those who have lost their lives.

With the recent passage of the federal Infrastructure Bill, we have a historic opportunity to direct billions of dollars toward fixing deadly roads and improving walking and biking conditions — particularly for communities that have been traditionally underserved. It is long past time to push back on the excuse that “there is not enough money” to fix dangerous streets. The federal government just allocated over $100 billion to improve our infrastructure.

This World Day of Remembrance, we (as a united front with others) are demanding that the funds be used to end the soaring public health crisis on our roadways because #SafeStreetsSaveLives. Moreover, there are solutions that require little to no expenditure to make streets safer including lowering speed limits and implementing automated speed enforcement.

Now is the time to act because the U.S. is an outlier. According to a recent report on traffic crashes from the Center for Disease Control, the United States is one of the most dangerous industrialized nations in terms of traffic violence and it is only getting more dangerous.

#WDoR2022 #SafeStreetsSaveLives