Frederick Frazier and the accident scene where he lost his life.

On Tuesday of this week, 22 year old Frederick Frazier was riding his bike with a group of friends in the middle of the day. He was struck and killed by a motorist who left the scene and has yet to be apprehended. The next day Frazier’s friends held a vigil at the site of the accident. While they stood in the intersection an angry motorist deliberately drove into the group hitting and injuring one of Frazier’s friends. This motorist also drove off without stopping.

I’ve been hit by cars twice while cycling and Kelly was hit by a car while walking. Thankfully, neither of us suffered serious injuries. Many of our fellow Angelinos, like Frazier, were not so lucky. Two hundred and forty-four people died in traffic crashes in the city of Los Angeles in 2017. Unfortunately, our elected officials here in Los Angeles don’t take this public health crisis seriously enough. Rather than make our streets safer they spend their time pondering presidential runs and virtue signaling on issues they have no legislative authority over. When my own councilman Mitch O’Farrell’s hypocrisy was pointed out to him (he halted a road diet on Temple street where 5 people have died and 34 have been seriously injured between 2009 and 2017), he responded with this terse and arrogant Tweet:

Between Frazier’s death and my own councilman’s intemperate tweeting, I’ve been too angry to write or work on the podcast this week. The week’s bad news (an acquaintance of mine also broke 11 ribs in a bike vs. car crash) brought up bad memories of the bike and pedestrian advocacy that I was a part of years ago. I especially remember two frustrating situations, when a group of us unsuccessfully attempted to stop Hollywood lobbyists from taking way bike lanes as well as the time we dared to suggest that speed limits should be lowered. In both cases we were treated condescendingly and, in the case of the Hollywood bike lane incident, not even allowed to speak.

I’m reluctant to bring up these issues on Root Simple because I strive to keep the blog positive and practical. But I can think of at least two simple things you can do to begin the process of making our cities more livable and safe, especially for our children and elders.

Burn Your AAA Card
The Automobile Club likes to hide behind the cheery road trip facade epitomized by their magazines and free travel advice. But behind the scenes they are a lobbying group as powerful and nefarious as the tobacco industry. They’ve never seen a road they don’t like and have spent the past hundred years making our cities into dangerous traffic sewers (see this article). Their lobbyists have a seat on municipal traffic commissions and they have the ear of our politicians. Thankfully there’s an alternative. If you want roadside assistance you can sign up for the Better World Club or just use the towing service offered by your insurance company. The tow trucks all come from the same source so you don’t need AAA.

Find Out Your Neighborhood’s Crash Hot Spots
If you live in California you have free access to a powerful map-based database, the Transportation Injury Mapping System. Once you sign up for a free account you can search your neighborhood by type of accident or go to their map which shows pedestrian and cycling crash “hot spots.” Armed with this information you can ask your elected officials for help by, at least, writing a letter. Or, if you’re a parent, look up the intersections around their school and share this information with your PTA and elected officials.

A better world is possible. In Walter Benjamin’s thinking the Messiah returns and just makes a bunch of small changes. We don’t need grand schemes like Elon Musk’s car tubes or Uber’s flying drone cars. We human beings, before the age of the automobile, used to make human-scaled cities. Those cities can still be visited and learned from (treat yourself to a vacation in Sienna or Venice). The changes we need to make are simple, inexpensive and don’t rely on any new technology.