Traffic violence in Los Angeles and California has been on the rise since 2020, but it’s hard to pinpoint why that is. Jack Hallinan investigated the dark truth behind the sad statistics.
If you drive in LA, you’re no stranger to auto accidents littered across the city’s streets and highways.
Unfortunately, it’s a sign and sound Angelenos have grown all too used to. More than 300 people died due to traffic violence in 2022, marking the city’s highest traffic death toll in 20 years.
Damian Kevitt: I was bicycling in Griffith Park with my wife, we were going to the LA Zoo for a picnic.
That’s Damian Kevitt. He suffered a horrible accident about 10 years ago.
Kevitt: I was hit, pinned underneath a car, dragged nearly a quarter of a mile from the streets onto and down the 5 freeway at freeway speeds.
The incident caused irreversible damage to Kevitt’s lower body.
Kevitt: My right leg was ripped off, about 20 pounds of flesh in 2 minutes, 20 broken bones. It was a hit and run. The guy that hit me never stopped and was never caught, so I was left in traffic lanes of the 5 freeway.
But his terrible accident put Kevitt on a journey toward advocacy for safer streets. Kevitt is the founder of the organization ‘Streets Are For Everyone’, S.A.F.E., and his job is as important as ever.
Fatalities have continued to rise since 2020 in the city of Los Angeles as well as the state. In fact, around 10% of the nation’s traffic deaths occur in California.
That statistic and others like it are probably what inspired California State Senator Scott Wiener to propose legislation that all cars should have speed governors that automatically prevent drivers from going more than 10 miles per hour above the speed limit.
While that solution seems unlikely to pass through the legislature for the time being — Kevitt’s organization has produced practical results towards the same goal. S.A.F.E’s mission began when Kevitt was still in the hospital.
Kevitt: But after the doctor’s left, I turned to my wife and my mom, who was there, and I said ‘I’m going to finish that bike ride that I started when I get out of the hospital... And once I was recovered enough we started with an event called Finish the Ride. And that was an awareness-raising event, it was an event focused on hit-and-runs and to raise awareness of and to try and make streets safer.
S.A.F.E. made the Finish the Ride event an annual tradition and it will mark its 11th year this April.
Kevitt: The event was so successful that we ended up… I was asked by people, ‘please don’t stop, do more’ and so I continued and that became the organization Streets Are for Everyone.
Kevitt’s role as a leader in the fight against traffic violence remains as vital as ever. Late in 2023, 34-year-old mother of five Adriana Infante lost her eldest son Felipe to a hit and run in South LA.
Infante: That day, he was going to school, he waited until the car stopped, he was crossing the street, he was almost done, and unfortunately, Arturo Mercado was on his phone watching TikTok videos and hit my son, flew him 14 feet, left him there…
Felipe walked an hour everyday to Fremont High School. His mom says he liked to sew and he was also a member of the Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps. She says he hoped it would give him a secure future after high school. But… that would never happen.
Infante: He was in the hospital for a week and a half until they said they couldn’t keep him in the machines no more, so they disconnected him because he couldn’t pass the brain tests, so they declared him brain dead.
Infante became involved with S.A.F.E. in the wake of her son’s passing. She says she hopes activism against traffic violence will make streets safer for everyone. Especially children like her own.
Infante: As you saw I have 5 other kids… so unfortunately, you know, I do work, I am a single mother, so I do have to work, sometimes, double shift. And as kids, they have to walk or be on their own, you know? It’s always that on your head, you know, are they okay?
After our interview, Adriana pointed me in the direction of a makeshift memorial to honor Felipe, just down the block from their home.
Hallinan: I’m standing on the corner of 110th and Main Street, the location where Felipe Infante was struck and killed by a reckless driver. There’s now a memorial here that marks his passing. It’s a tire that’s been painted white and chained to a street sign, with messages written on it. One says ‘hit and run is not an accident’ and in Felipe’s case, it certainly wasn’t. It’s unfortunately easy to see how Felipe was hit while crossing the street, as Main is a busy road where drivers are moving quickly, but there are no stop signs or traffic lights that obligate drivers to stop. While it may be a bit inconvenient for drivers, pedestrians would be much safer on this street if cars were required to stop at the intersection.
Tragic incidents like the one that ended Felipe’s life prematurely unfortunately suggest we aren’t likely to see an end to traffic violence soon. Especially since it doesn’t have just one root cause, according to Kevitt.
Kevitt: And so we don’t know exactly why it’s gone up so much, I can’t tell you exactly.. but we know this: We know that speeding is the primary factor. We know that speeding is the single largest thing that’s driving collisions and fatalities.
For that reason, maybe Senator Wiener’s speed bill will make a different in the future, but in the meantime, S.A.F.E also played a key role in pushing through California’s AB645 bill, which pilots speed cameras in school zones, known street racing circuits and high traffic-incident areas.
But that’s not all it will take. Solving traffic violence will require faster action from those behind the wheel as well as those in power.
Kevitt: We need to actually treat it with the urgency that it deserves, with the funding that it deserves… You know, like, just do anything! We need to treat it as the public health crisis that it is, we’re in the living wild, wild west right now in terms of road safety.