When a plane crashes, the first thing investigators look for is "pilot error."
When a motor vehicle crashes, the authorities ask questions like, "Was the driver intoxicated? Was he or she texting?"
When a pedestrian is struck, the focus turns to matters like what the pedestrian was wearing. Could he or she not be seen in the dark?
And when I crashed, the first things the police wanted to know were: Was I wearing a helmet? Was I following all relevant traffic laws? Was I intoxicated? ("Yes" to the first two questions; "No" to the third.)
In other words, when what are commonly called "accidents" occur, the first inclination of investigators is to look for "human error." While some mishaps are indeed a result of drinking, texting or other distractions, or of carelessness, as often as not, the blame lies elsewhere.
Jessie Singer, the author of There Are No Accidents, offers this explanation: We focus on individual blame because it makes it easier to believe that it couldn't happen to us. As an example, I grew up in a place and time in which women and girls were blamed for getting raped: If she hadn't been wherever she was whenever she was, wearing whatever she was, it wouldn't have happened to her. Or so people believed. But, as we all know, there are all sorts of situation in which someone "did everything right" and still suffered an "accident" or is somehow victimized.
The problem with the focus on individual behavior, according to Singer, is that it prevents the structural changes necessary to prevent recurrences of crashes or other mishaps.
Charles Marohn would agree. He is an engineer who used to work on road design. The most dangerous roads for everyone--but especially cyclists, pedestrians and the disabled--are what he calls "stroads": thoroughfares that combine the worst traits of roads and streets. Roads, he said, are designed to move people and vehicles from one place to another. Well-designed roads, he explains, are usually wide, with lots of lanes and clear zones on either side to make driver errors less deadly. Streets, on the other hand, are places where people live, shop, eat and play. The deadliest roads in America, like a stretch of US-19 on Florida's Gulf Coast, are what he would call "stroads": several lanes of high-speed traffic lined with big-box stores and other businesses that provide a steady stream of cars and trucks pulling in and out of those lanes.
Of course, the design of such roads isn't the only reason why pedestrian and cyclist injuries and fatalities have increased: Vehicles have grown bigger and, thus, deadlier. But Singer and Marohn agree that re-designing roadways will do far more to improve safety for cyclists, pedestrians, people in wheelchairs--and drivers--than focusing solely on the behavior of people who use, or simply try to co-exist, with the road. As evidence, they point out that the "hot spots" for cyclist and pedestrian fatalities and deaths are found in places as diverse as Port Ritchey, Florida (one of the communities through which US-19 passes), Langley Park, Maryland; Albuquerque, New Mexico; Los Angeles and Manhattan. But nearly all of them have the kinds of "roads" or "stroads" Marohn warns against.
