District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser plans to lower speed limits and increase the number of speeding tickets in hopes to completely end traffic deaths in the city by 2024.
Bowser announced the initiative, dubbed “Vision Zero,” at a press conference Tuesday afternoon, where she said 30 different government agencies and community groups came together to devise the plan.
“Vision Zero is our strategic roadmap to eliminate fatalities and injuries on District streets by 2024,” Bowser said. “But this is just the first step. Now that we have a smart plan, we will make the necessary changes to our street network so that residents, workers and visitors can safely navigate our great city.”
Together, government agencies, cyclists, pedestrians and drivers contributed to a map of more than 4,500 hazardous locations throughout the city that Bowser hopes to eliminate.
According to the report, around 85 percent of traffic deaths within city limits occured on arterial streets and freeways. In order to correct this, district leaders decided to create safe zones in problem areas. By Jan. 2017, most streets that run through the city will have a 25 mph speed limit.
“Protecting vulnerable travelers through speed reduction is a strong theme through our Action Plan,” District Department of Transportation Director Leif Dormsjo said.
The plan also calls for an “enhanced boot-tow-release program for habitually dangerous scofflaw drivers.” In other words, people who rack up multiple traffic tickets will likely come back to a booted car.
The report noted that more than 20,000 vehicles in the District have at least 15 unpaid tickets and more than 230,000 vehicles are currently “boot-eligible.” Under the Vision Zero plan, those “boot-eligible” cars will likely get booted.
The problem with collecting fines for the District arises with the way the tickets are handed out. All tickets generated by speed cameras are treated legally as parking violations, not moving violations, since they are associated with a vehicle instead of a particular driver.
The DMVs in Maryland and Virginia don’t cooperate on data reciprocity with the D.C. Department of Motor Vehicles for non-moving violations, so drivers from those states can continue registering their vehicles without actually paying the fines.
“For this reason, habitual offenders know that so long as they are not apprehended in person, they can refuse to pay fines designed to deter dangerous behavior,” the report reads.
Drivers from Maryland and Virginia, according to the report, are responsible for nearly 45 percent of traffic accidents in D.C.
Read the whole plan here:
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