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The simple idea that helped prevent millions of traffic deaths

The road safety revolution began when we stopped treating crashes as inevitable. Now, we have to finish the job

Let me start with the most local of local stories: the intersection down the street from my apartment in Brooklyn, where Columbia Street meets Summit Street.

Since my family moved into the neighborhood in 2023, I’ve hated this intersection. It has no stop signs, no crosswalks, no signal. Crossing on foot with my son meant grabbing his hand and hoping any oncoming cars would slow down, which, given that this is New York, is maybe a 50/50 proposition at best. Everyone knew a stop sign or signal was needed, but the city did nothing.

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That finally began to change late last year, after a 10-year-old girl was struck and injured by a car just two blocks north of the intersection. The neighborhood organized, packed a public meeting and eventually walked a city official down the block so he could stand in the intersection and see what they saw every day. Which is how I woke up on July 17 to see four stop signs and freshly painted crosswalks at the intersection I hated so much.

My very local story is part of a much bigger one. Cars kill about 1.16 million people a year worldwide — more than the population of San Jose, erased every year. Road injuries remain the leading cause of death for everyone between the ages of 5 and 29 — ahead of malaria, ahead of war and homicide, ahead of every disease we spend more time worrying about.

The surprising reason why pedestrian deaths are down in the US

For most of the 20th century, that was simply the price of moving around faster. Being in a car was the most dangerous thing most of us did on any given day, and we seemed to have no choice but to accept the consequnces.

But, it turns out, we don’t. According to new data released last month, between 2011 and 2025, the rate at which the world’s roads killed people, measured against population, fell 21 percent, even as more than a billion motor vehicles were added to the world’s roads. It’s still far too high, and the death rate actually increased in Africa, as more vehicles are added to often substandard roads. But in epidemiological terms: Globally, exposure went up while deaths went down. What ultimately changed was an argument about whose fault it really is when a car crashes.

The global epidemic of death by cars

The doctor who decided crashes were not accidents

It’s not too much of an exaggeration to say that American cars were once all but literal death traps. In 1966, they killed 50,894 Americans and injured 1.9 million more, in vehicles with rigid steering columns........

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