Drivers Killed 1 Person Walking and 1 Person Biking Last Week, Surpassing 2017’s Death Toll
With more than four months left in 2018, motorists have ended the lives 15 people walking and biking. It’s already been a deadlier year for pedestrians and bicyclists than 2017, when drivers killed 14.
Those are the facts after another deadly week on Denver’s streets. Between August 13 and 19, drivers killed one bicyclist, Victor Lynch, and one pedestrian, Raymond Davies, according to the Denver Police Department. One person in a car, Kevin Caldwell, was also killed. A motorcyclist, Rebecca Rhees, died of injuries sustained the week prior.
Denver PD responded to 435 crashes, bringing the total number of collisions past the 15,000 mark this year. That’s countless hours of police work devoted to investigating incidents made inevitable by streets and policies designed for speed, not safety.
With this series, we aim to remind politicians, transportation officials, local media, and the public that the cost of inaction on traffic safety policies is extremely high. The longer it takes to redesign our car-centric streets, the more people will get hurt or killed.
The Hancock administration and Denver PD still lack a protocol for alerting the public to serious traffic collisions and tallying them accurately, despite the mayor’s ostensible commitment ending traffic deaths, announced more than two years ago. Hopefully documenting this information, gathered from Denver PD reports, will help drive change from decision-makers and elevate the profile of this public health crisis.
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