Saturday marked 20 consecutive years of daily traffic fatalities on Texas roadways. It’s a streak transportation officials want to end, but they know it will be difficult.
“Even with a 44% reduction in traffic in some areas of the state this year, we continue to watch loved ones die due to preventable deaths on our roadways,” Texas Transportation Commissioner Laura Ryan said during a recent meeting. “More than 70,000 family members have died since Nov. 7, 2000 – would-be mothers, fathers, sons and daughters. And their families will carry this burden with them forever.”
The Texas Department of Transportation cites causes such as speed, drunken driving and distracted driving as the main causes of crashes that lead to fatalities. Ryan also cited a growing number of fatalities in the past year where victims were not wearing seat belts.
TxDOT’s End The Streak TX campaign encourage drivers to follow safe habits on the roads and spread that message to friends and loved ones.
The agency has also committed to spending $600 million over the next decade on efforts to cut traffic deaths in half by 2035 and end them by 2050. The funding will focus on the areas that have had the most traffic deaths or serious injuries.
“Five years ago, they sort of hadn’t realized that this was a stat,” Jay Blazek Crossley, executive director of the nonprofit Farm and City, said. “And TxDOT is doing tremendous work to turn this around. So the fact that we’re talking about it is crucial.”
But Crossley, who has advocated for Vision Zero efforts over the years, says more work needs to be done. He and other advocates are pushing for new laws in the next legislative session, including a statewide ban on the use of handheld devices while driving and allowing cities to lower speed limits in residential areas.
“We lead the nation in traffic deaths and it's going to take a while to fix that,” Crossley said. “We can, but we're barely started.”
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