The last piece of New Year’s confetti had barely landed on the floor when the news came in on January 1, 2017: A pedestrian had been hit by a motorist who immediately fled the scene before crashing into a fence. The pedestrian was killed. It was the first traffic violence casualty of 2017 and was recorded on PHLtrafficvictims.org early that morning.
After that, traffic violence—as far as traffic deaths went—seemed to calm down. We went almost the entire month without another unneeded death.
Then, between January 27 and 31, five people were killed in traffic in Philadelphia—four pedestrians and a motorcyclist. That brought the grand total to five pedestrians throughout January; two sisters, one child, and one senior.
The Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia and the Vision Zero Alliance will continue advocating for better, safer places for our citizens to travel without the threat of getting killed. We look forward to the Vision Zero Task Force report which will be released later this year. In the meantime, we created PHLtrafficvictims.org in 2016 to make sure Philadelphians do not forget the number of casualties to traffic violence in their city, and help us work toward a safer Philadelphia.