In advance of World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims, the advocacy group Streets Are For Everyone (SAFE) released a report on traffic accident victims in Los Angeles, stating that 210 people have been killed on the city’s streets this year into October. The number is higher than this time last year, with 2023 already being the deadliest year for traffic fatalities since 2003, when Los Angeles data first became available.
The latest vehicle-related fatality in Santa Monica took place the evening of Oct. 17, when 34-year-old Sherese Allen was struck by a 2015 Infiniti sports utility vehicle on the 1400 block of Santa Monica beach.
Santa Monica Harbor Officers located Allen, believed to be homeless, wedged beneath the vehicle not far from Parking Lot 1 North. Allen was determined deceased at the scene via traumatic asphyxia. The driver, identified as 21-year-old male YuYang Sun from Arcadia, CA, was arrested and preliminarily charged with driving under the influence, reckless driving and gross vehicular manslaughter.
The SAFE report states that 112 pedestrians were struck and killed in Los Angeles accidents through July 28 of this year, a 1% increase from 2023’s record-setting year for what the report calls "vehicular violence against walkers."
According to the California Office of Traffic Safety (OTS), a total of 499 victims were killed and injured in traffic collisions in 2021, the most recent year of publicly-available data on the OTS website. Of those, 70 were pedestrians, which was ranked first out of 105 California cities from OTS rankings based on statistical categories like observed crash counts, population and vehicle miles traveled.
From the 2021 data, 47 of the 499 collision injuries/deaths were bicyclists, an issue that was also present in October 2023 when cyclist Tania Mooser died at the 19th and Idaho intersection. The Mooser accident, as well as four broken and two bruised ribs to Paul Postel at the same intersection a week after Moose’s death, led to City Council unanimously voting to strengthen the city’s Vision Zero safety commitment.
Vision Zero is something SAFE says needs to be reestablished in Los Angeles "with accountability, transparency and purpose."
"We’d hoped that the sobering numbers in our annual reports would serve as a wake-up call for our elected officials and responsible agencies, but 2024 has proven that our calls to action are not being heard, let alone heeded … though some agencies and elected officials have proven their desire to fight for safer streets, the little that has been done has been ineffective or too late to make a difference," the SAFE report stated.
thomas@smdp.com
