“This was a shift in responsibility. No more would the government blame ‘jaywalkers’ and ‘nuts behind the wheel’ for their deaths. Instead, when someone died on the road, government officials and traffic engineers were responsible; they had to explain how they had let it happen. And instead of designing for a perfect human, those officials began designing roads from the starting point: What might go wrong? Blame, in the form of traffic enforcement, was deprioritized. Instead, the road was built to reduce the harm of inevitable mistakes.”
– Author Jessie Singer, on the rise of Vision Zero in Sweden, in her book, There Are No Accidents
The aftermath of a crash on Monroe Drive at Dutch Valley Road. Photo: Propel ATL
Ten people died on Atlanta roads in the first quarter of 2025. Each one of these deaths was preventable, according to a Vision Zero approach to roadway safety.
When cities adopt Vision Zero, it means they declare that no death is an “acceptable cost” of our urban transportation system. Each and every fatal crash must be examined and analyzed with a specific focus on the dangerous conditions that led to a loss of life. This means moving away from assigning blame to individuals to look at systemic factors – similar to the way the National Transportation Safety Board conducts air crash investigations.
Since Atlanta officially adopted Vision Zero in 2020, the City has also committed itself to this approach. That’s where the Fatal Crash Review Commission comes in.
Last year, the City of Atlanta started convening quarterly Fatal Crash Review Commission meetings. This body was created as a result of Propel ATL’s advocacy in June 2023, thanks to the sponsorship of Atlanta City Council Member Dustin Hillis (District 9).
The third such meeting took place in June with an agenda that included an annual review of 2024 and a review of 2025’s first quarter. The next meeting, in September, will examine the second quarter of this year.
When I mentioned to a friend that Atlanta had recently inaugurated a commission to review fatal crashes on city roads, their immediate reaction was two-fold:
- Surprise/Disbelief: “What? Did we not review fatal crashes before?”
- Skepticism: “A ‘commission,’ huh? Will it have any teeth? Will it lead to real changes?”
Before discussing the findings of the latest review meeting, I think it is worthwhile addressing both of these emotions.
A crash in on West Peachtree Street in Midtown — a busy, one-way street in an area frequented by people walking, cycling, and scooting. Photo: Propel ATL
Surprise/Disbelief
“What? Did we not review fatal crashes before?”
Good ideas seem obvious in retrospect, and an officially sanctioned city commission taking a safe-systems approach to review fatal crashes is certainly a good idea. In fact, much the same can be said for Vision Zero as a whole.
While it may sound easy enough to just “take a safe systems approach,” it really requires a methodical process and disciplined thinking to do this well. It is hard to see past the individual actors involved in a crash to the underlying system factors that might contribute to the crash and its severity.
When I reviewed the Fatal Crash Review Committee meeting notes, my knee-jerk reaction each time I read about a crash was to first determine which participant was at fault. It really takes practiced concentration to get past the “just an accident” mentality, seeing past the human failings to the system behind them. When you read “driver left the roadway,” it is hard not to think, “Well, just don’t do that!” and let your thinking end there.
The committee members are disciplined professionals who know how to look beyond the particulars of the participants and see all aspects of the transportation system within which the crash took place. For example, does an excessively wide roadway encourage speeding? Does a painted crosswalk without any corresponding design cues – curb bulb-outs, a speed table, and an on-demand flashing beacon – create danger for pedestrians?
The committee reviews each incident, highlights systemic factors that might have contributed to the crash, and recommends short- and long-term actions that might be taken to improve outcomes – not just fewer crashes, but less severe and deadly crashes when they do occur.
The aftermath of a driver-on-cyclist crash. Photo: www.tredz.co.uk/Wikimedia Commons
Skepticism
“A ‘commission,’ huh? Will it have any teeth? Will it lead to real changes?”
Turning Vision Zero goals and recommendations into action is where many cities hit turbulence and political pushback. Responding to a report that Helsinki, Finland had achieved its goal of zero traffic fatalities over the prior 12-month period – thanks to lowered speed limits and smart design – historian/advocate John Lloyd said: “Vision Zero works, but it’s not going to happen if we’re too afraid to inconvenience a single motorist.”
In his book “Killed by a Traffic Engineer,” author Wes Marshall compares most U.S. cities’ all-talk, little-action Vision Zero approaches to the way the character Michael Scott on The Office “declares bankruptcy,” shouting “I DECLARE BANKRUPTCY!” and expecting it to have some effect.
Photo: wallpapers.com
Let’s face it: When you tell people that a committee has been formed to review the situation, people are skeptical that any real action will ever be taken. All too often a committee is formed as a theatrical way to demonstrate that we care about the problem, but not so much that we are going to muster the political will to do anything about the problem.
So far, Atlanta’s Fatal Crash Review Commission is doing a great job of creating insights and recommending potential lifesaving actions. The real trick will be to convert those insights into tangible change. We can see a little traction and a few real results already. We hope to see a lot more traction as the months wear on. In the meantime, we must all strike our own tender balance between patient advocacy and righteous impatience.
Illustration courtesy of ATLDOT
Observations and implications
Of the ten who died in crashes in 2025’s first quarter, half were pedestrians. Pedestrians are vulnerable actors in our transportation system, and typically do not survive when cars hit them at speeds greater than 20 mph. Our transportation systems need to reduce risk for people walking by exploring more opportunities for traffic calming.
Half of those who died were people more than 65 years old. Older people are more vulnerable to being injured or killed in crashes.
As so often is the case, the vulnerable are more likely to feel the brunt of our transportation system failures. And as our annual crash report demonstrates, racial inequities are also baked into the system. To quote the report: “In the three-county area, Census tracts whose population is predominantly Black or African American make up 54 percent of all tracts but account for 73 percent of all traffic fatalities.”
This injustice continues to be borne out in the quarterly numbers.
Vision Zero will help us improve, but only if we continue to bring pressure to turn thoughtful recommendations into action to redesign streets, removing dangerous conditions and preventing deadly crashes before they can happen.“In two decades, as traffic volume grew, Sweden cut the number killed on the roads by half. Today the per capita rate of fatal traffic accidents in Sweden is less than a third of that in the U.S. The people who made the roads were accountable to the people who used them. And this simple act – assigning accountability to the people with the most power – meant that the people with the ability to prevent accidents did just that.” – Jessie Singer, There Are No Accidents, p.219