Los Angeles has had its deadliest year in at least a decade, with 337 people killed.
This is the third consecutive year of increase in deaths, and a 7.3% increase from 2022, according to the report. Los Angeles Police Department Traffic Division Data. The lowest in the last 10 years was in 2015, when the number of motor vehicle-related deaths was 186.
in January 9th meeting Los Angeles Police Commission Chief Michel Moore said that by 2023, more people will die in crashes than homicide victims (there were 327 homicides, according to police). latest police data).
More than half of the dead were pedestrians. get hit by a carAs of December 23, there had been 176 casualties. Transportation Division Compstat data (The number of pedestrian fatalities at the end of the year has not yet been released). In the whole of 2022, there were 160 such deaths.
In 2019, before the pandemic, a total of 136 pedestrians were killed in collisions with vehicles.
“The increase in pedestrian fatalities is actually an annual phenomenon,” Moore said at the Police Commission meeting. “I think a lot of that has to do with distracted driving and high-speed driving.”
Aiming for zero
There has also been a worrying increase in the number of people killed in hit-and-run incidents. Last year, there were 105 such deaths, a double-digit increase compared to the previous year. This is almost triple the number of hit-and-run fatalities recorded in the city in 2015.
Concerns about traffic fatalities in Los Angeles are nothing new. In 2015, then-Mayor Eric Garcetti vision zero The plan is to eliminate fatal car accidents in the city by 2025. Measures to accomplish that included improvements such as traffic light upgrades and more protected bike lanes.
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But as Moore pointed out, for every safety measure there are factors that make roads more dangerous, from drunk drivers to people on their cell phones. He told a police commission meeting that the responsibility for safety is increasingly falling on pedestrians.
“Don’t rely on engineering, road design or traffic regulations to keep you safe,” he instructed. “We must act defensively and be aware that there are distracted and impaired drivers on the road.”
Different trends across the country
The increase in traffic fatalities in Los Angeles appears to run counter to what’s happening nationwide.a Preliminary analysis According to a study by the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, an estimated 19,515 people died in traffic accidents in the United States in the first half of 2023, a decrease of 3.3% from the same period last year.
Across California, traffic fatalities decreased by 12% in the first half of 2023, according to the report.
The Los Angeles area with the highest number of traffic-related deaths in 2023 was congested. downtown, The number of deaths was 16. But large numbers of deaths were reported in communities across the city, from South Los Angeles to the San Fernando Valley.
Late last year, the situation in South Los Angeles was particularly dangerous. During the 2 week period, 9 people died In a series of collisions. Among them was a mother and a 5-year-old boy who were struck by a car on Thanksgiving morning. The driver is suspected of being intoxicated and traveling at over 100 miles per hour.
Efforts are underway to improve safety. Los Angeles is one of six cities in California this year as part of a pilot program. A speed camera will be installed It’s around some schools and what’s known as a high-injury network. Cameras will now be able to capture license plates and tickets will be issued to the registered owner of the speeding vehicle.
But Moore said traffic deaths often occur in places people don’t expect. He said fatal crashes more often occur on “narrow roads rather than wide, expansive areas with multiple lanes and medians, like we see in the San Fernando Valley, for example.” I warned you.
how did you do it: We examined publicly available crash data. Los Angeles Police Department Traffic Division From January 1, 2010 to December 31, 2023, and Los Angeles Police Department Traffic Division Compstat data.Click here for details our data is here.
LAPD data only reflects crashes reported to the department, not the number of crashes that actually occur. In making our calculations, we rely on data made public by her LAPD. LAPD may update past collision reports with new information or reclassify past reports. These revised reports do not always automatically become part of the public database.
If you have any questions about the data or would like to learn more, please contact us. askus@xtown.la.