Kansas City Councilwoman Melissa Robinson recently posted, “On a beautiful Saturday, my 16 and 10 year old ride the bus to the KC Wheel and my only worry and constant reminder is “stay on the sidewalk, be careful walking!”

In Kansas City, fatalities spiked significantly during the pandemic and have remained high, with 103 deaths recorded in 2021. This was the highest total in over three decades, marking a substantial increase compared to pre-pandemic levels. While the numbers decreased to 90 fatalities in 2022, they climbed again to 102 in 2023, indicating persistent safety challenges on the city’s streets. The city has been trying to reduce fatalities through its Vision Zero program, a safety initiative launched in 2020 and intended to eliminate traffic deaths by 2030. However, the program has faced challenges due to limited funding and political support.

St. Louis has faced similar issues, with pedestrian fatalities particularly concerning. In 2021, the city and county combined saw 178 traffic-related deaths, and in 2022, the figure slightly decreased to 173. The City of St. Louis recorded 78 fatalities in 2022, one of the highest annual totals, reflecting a concerning trend. Pedestrian deaths in St. Louis County, in particular, have increased dramatically over the last decade, with areas on high-speed corridors responsible for a significant portion of these fatalities. Mayor Tishaura Jones recently posted, “Parents are afraid to let their children play outside or walk or bike to school because they would have to navigate roads built for big, motorized vehicles.”

It’s easy to argue that each city’s homicide rate takes precedent over traffic safety. Advocates for reform doubtlessly believe that efforts to reduce traffic deaths are underfunded—and they may have a point. Streets probably could be better designed; pedestrian infrastructure could be improved.

The job of running a city is difficult, there are so many priorities to balance. Public safety needs to be a priority, and that extends beyond homicide rates. I suspect however, that the initial solutions are the same: swift and sure enforcement of existing law.

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Forbes’s data were compiled from an array of federal organizations, including the FBI. The rankings are based on fatal accident rates, DUI arrests, road rage incidents, car thefts, risk of wildlife collision, condition of roads, and more.

Breaking the rankings down further, Missouri has the:

• 5th highest rate of car thefts
• 6th highest percentage of drivers who experienced a road rage incident
• 10th highest number of drunk drivers involved fatal car crashes
• 10th highest wildlife collision risk
• 12th highest number of people killed in fatal car accidents

The City of St. Louis likely contributes to the overall high riskiness measured in Forbes’s metric. Last year, I wrote a post during the height of mass Hyundai and Kia thefts, when thefts of those two brands soared from 273 to 3,958 in one year. During a two-week period in that August, there were 462 cars stolen or attempted to be stolen in the City of St. Louis, yet shockingly, only 1 person was charged in city courts for a crime related to auto theft over that same time period.

I’ve lived in the city for two years now, and I still haven’t seen someone in the city get pulled over for driving into oncoming traffic or running red lights. The data confirm this observation, as vehicle stops, citations, and arrests in the city have all greatly decreased.

Since 1995, the City of St. Louis has lost 22% of its residents and 40% of its police force. Police staffing shortages are real in the city. In 2024, the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department is budgeted to have 1,220 officers on staff, but currently only has 894.

For a city that is shrinking, the reputation and reality of having unsafe roads is a huge problem. It is imperative for St. Louis and Missouri at-large that we make a U-turn and make our roads safer.

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Many people simply do not feel safe in St. Louis. As a city resident, I have incorporated several different habits while living in the city. To name two, I look both ways at every single green light and I ensure nothing of value is visible in my car. Auto thefts have been on the rise, and in particular, thefts of two brands (Hyundai and Kia) have soared from 273 to 3,958 in the past year in the City of St. Louis.

While there is a specific design flaw that has led to Kia and Hyundai thefts skyrocketing, the lack of punishment and deterrence might be contributing to rising vehicle crime in the city. From August 1 to August 13 in 2022, 462 cars were stolen or attempted stolen in the City of St. Louis. Yet despite the surge in auto thefts, only 1 person was charged in city courts for a crime related to auto theft during the same two week period. Whether this is due to lack of punishment or lack of law enforcement capacity to find the culprits, city residents are suffering all the same.

The lack of regard for traffic rules visible on a daily basis. For example, the day I wrote this piece, my coworker and I saw someone drive into oncoming traffic on Kingshighway Blvd, veer in front of someone turning left from the adjacent street, and blatantly run a red light. These everyday close calls can turn into fatal crashes. Despite a declining population, 230 people were killed in traffic crashes in the City of St. Louis City from 2020–2022 (with a 20 year record high of 81 in 2020) as compared to 128 from 2008–2010.

While there has been a national increase in traffic fatalities in recent years, it seems fair to wonder if local policy in St. Louis has exacerbated that trend. Even as reckless driving has seemed to increase, vehicle stops in the city have declined from their peak of 85,622 in 2009 to 45,124 in 2021. Similarly, traffic citations have decreased from 34,833 in 2009 to 17,763 in 2021. Again, whether this is due to a decision to not punish this type of crime or a lack of capacity to effectively patrol the streets, City of St. Louis residents suffer the consequences all the same.

The decline of a proud and historic city like St. Louis is a sad thing to witness. We are known as the Gateway to the West, yet sadly our streets right now more closely resemble the Wild West. If city leaders want to attract new residents and prevent current residents from leaving, they need to get a serious handle on the public safety issue, and they need to do it quickly.

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The expenditure is questionable when you consider that less than half of one percent of the city’s population currently uses the bike lanes. Even worse, the bike lanes might be introducing a new set of safety risks.  

Drivers have had concerns about the safety of Kansas City’s new parking-protected bike lanes since the pricy installation began, including complaints about limited visibility and dangerous intersections. If 311 complaints about near-misses and crashes weren’t enough, a near-fatal accident seems to have highlighted the problems.

A crash occurred on May 11 along Armour Boulevard after a driver whose view of oncoming traffic was obstructed by the bike lane was struck by another vehicle. Her Chevy Suburban was flipped on its side, and a responding police officer told her family members that they likely would have been planning their daughter’s funeral if not for the size of the vehicle she was driving.

This driver was lucky that she was in such a large vehicle, but what if that had been a smaller car? Or, even worse, what if that had been a cyclist crossing through one of the intersections or into turn lanes? Limited visibility is not just a problem for cars; it poses a major risk to cyclists in certain sections of the lane.

In response to the accident, a spokesperson from Kansas City Public Works stated:

[W]e plan to make sight line adjustments and add vertical delineators as part of the [safety] pilot here in a few weeks. We are still working on timing and date details. Depending on neighborhood feedback and the impacts of the pilot location, we will coordinate with the Parks Department to make those modifications along the corridor.

Really? It is going to take a “few weeks” to install a No Parking sign (“vertical delineator”) at a dangerous intersection in the wake of a serious accident. I probably shouldn’t be surprised, considering that the promised pilot program to investigate and address safety programs along the route has been delayed for months.

Safety improvement plans are all well and good, but shouldn’t a problem as obvious as lack of visibility have been addressed before the city started funneling money into this project? If taxpayer money is going to be put toward infrastructure like this, all elements need to be thoroughly considered in advance, including the safety risks. Will the city address these concerns before they spend money on lane expansion? I hope so.

The post When Will Kansas City Officials Address Bike Lane Safety Concerns? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

It is important to realize that this marketing campaign, even though it uses biker-oriented talking points, is not talking about 36 cyclist lives—the latest annual data from 2017 showed zero cyclist fatalities. Instead, it estimates:

• 15 lives saved by increased physical activity
• 6 lives saved by improved air quality
• 15 lives saved by a reduction in fatal car crashes (not crashes that occur because a cyclist was involved—any fatal car accident counts)

Only the physical activity category is directly connected to bikers who would use the lanes.

There are problems with these estimates. Physical activity benefits, while hard to measure, are dependent upon more Kansas Citians choosing to bike instead of drive. Only 0.3 percent of commuters used bikes in 2018, and a survey noted that fewer than 50 percent of respondents were interested in biking more. More bike lanes could mean an increased number of bikers—but it’s just a projection, and there’s no way to know how many more bikers we’ll see with expanded bike lanes, let alone what the actual health benefits will be.

Six lives saved by improved air quality also seems a stretch. The number was achieved by expanding data from research in New Zealand. Even if this study was properly applied to Kansas City, the boasted number is the highest estimate possible. An economic summary of the Bike KC Master Plan read:

Assuming 1 death due to air quality for every 100 million vehicle miles traveled and 1 per 40 million vehicle starts (trips), the bike plan could reduce Kansas City air pollution fatalities anywhere from 1-6 deaths per year . . . [emphasis added]

The most puzzling estimate is that of fatal crash reduction. The economic summary of the bike plan noted that 228 fatal car crashes occurred within the city limits of Kansas City from 2015-2017, and that 94 of these occurred along the route of the proposed bike lanes. While the summary boasts a 47 percent reduction in these crashes due to the way bike lanes will change the flow of traffic, no crash data was included.

Upon reaching out to the authors of the economic summary for more information, I was told that they did not have any data on the cause of these car accidents: 

The dataset provided by the Mid-America Regional Council did not provide any context on the causes of the crash. There has been some analysis of the contributing factors in fatal crashes . . . but our FHWA source on road diets does not differentiate by crash cause or even crash severity. It is simply an empirical measure on the impact of road-dieted streets on total crash volume. These benefits accrue to all users, regardless of mode or how many people take up bicycling.

How can a 47 percent reduction in fatal crashes be a realistic estimate when there is no available data on what caused the crashes? If the reduction is due to fewer cars traveling the roads with the bike lanes, does that simply mean the crashes occur on the alternative routes these cars travel? Stating the number of crashes occurring within city limits and presenting some traffic flow statistics from other areas does not seem compelling. If BikeWalkKC wants to claim 15 fewer lives taken annually by fatal car accidents as a result of expanded bike lanes, shouldn’t there be more data to back that claim up?

By portraying the Bike KC Master Plan as a strategy that will save 36 lives per year, BikeWalkKC is not avoiding the real problem at hand: this project will cost hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars, money that could be better spent elsewhere. As my colleague Patrick Tuohey noted,

Kansas City has significant needs, significant transit needs. They are not biking. It is infrastructure. It is infrastructure repairs. It’s getting those steel plates off our streets.

The use of questionable statistics will not help develop solid city policy. If the city has millions of dollars to toss around and is concerned about saving lives, a better idea would be hiring more police officers, not building more bike lanes.

The post Would Kansas City Bike Lanes Actually Save 36 Lives per Year? Probably Not appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

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Since January 2009, accidents increased at 11 of 17 monitored intersections, and fatal crashes increased at 13 of those locations. Kansas City is not the first to see this happen with its red light camera program. The Star interviewed University of Illinois at Chicago Assistant Professor Rajiv Shah, who studied a red light camera program in Chicago:

“I’d say [Kansas City’s results are] very consistent with what cities across America have found . . . There’s really not a hard connection between reducing accidents and red-light cameras.”

The results of this study should have red light camera proponents reevaluating their positions. As we have pointed out before, red light cameras have many problems: they invade privacy and create a constitutionally suspect presumption of guilt. They are also prone to mistake. Brenda Talent, executive director of the Show-Me Institute, was fined for a violation she did not commit in Kansas City last year, and 1,000 lucky drivers were falsely accused of running red lights in Arnold, Mo., just two weeks ago.

Not surprisingly, American Traffic Solutions, the company that runs the program, publicly criticized the police department’s findings. ATS identified weather patterns, impaired drivers, and cell phone usage as the cause for increased wrecks. In other words, ATS identified anything but the red light cameras, which the company receives $1.6 million a year to operate, as the culprit for the increased crashes.

Despite the police study, it is likely that camera proponents will not rest. The Star editorial focused on a study by city engineers that found a decrease in total violations at monitored intersections. The Star praised the decrease in violations and declared that “red light cameras are working in Kansas City.” Fewer people running red lights, maybe; but if more accidents are occurring at monitored intersections, it is a stretch to conclude that red light cameras improve safety just because total violations have dropped.

Much to the dismay of proponents like the Star, the police study just confirmed what we already knew. Red light cameras are not about public safety, they are about generating revenue through traffic enforcement. The program has been very lucrative in Kansas City. The police study reports that officers have written nearly 200,000 tickets at $100 per ticket — adding $20 million to the city coffers.

The post Red Light Cameras Fail To Improve Safety In Kansas City appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

This provides the perfect narrative for what some might consider to be very compelling and policy-minded journalism: A tragedy has occurred and a cell phone was involved. Shouldn’t there be a law against that?

Consider this line from the New York Times’ series of articles on the subject: “With virtually every American owning a cellphone, distracted driving has become a threat on the nation’s roads.” Indeed, in September 2009, the newspaper wrote that it was time to crack down, saying that “…texting at the wheel is a national hazard that calls for a firm federal response.”

This weekend, I heard an interview on National Public Radio with Matt Richtel, the author of several Times articles regarding the dangers of cell phone use while driving, discussing whether he considered himself to be an advocate. Richtel provided the standard journalist line, saying that he just thinks it is important to ask tough questions.

Well, here are two more.

1. Traffic fatalities, crashes, accidents, etc. have declined dramatically. If driving is safer than ever, why is there such concern?

The argument I hear again and again (most recently when I sat in on Donnybrook) is that banning cell phones while driving is about safety. However, Missourinet reports that this year, traffic fatalities are headed for a 62-year low. The same trend is seen on the national level. Fatality, injury, and crash rates have all declined substantially since 1990.

If fatalities, crashes, and injuries are down, then I hardly think that we are experiencing a “national hazard” that warrants an outright ban on cell phone use while driving. Of course, there have been accidents where cell phones were clearly the cause. However, with traffic accidents and fatalities down during the same time period that cell phones became popular, cell phone use is clearly not as dangerous as some fear.

And, even if an action comes with a small amount of risk, that does not mean we should pass a law to ban it. In fact, driving with children in the car may be more distracting than those pesky cell phones. Should we ban driving with children? Are we in the midst of a national driving-with-children epidemic?

2. How could this possibly be enforced? And, do we really want to create another vague reason to stop and question citizens?

How on earth could a ban on cell phone use be enforced? Would a police officer be able to pull you over if you look down briefly while driving? How could the officer discern whether you are talking on a hands-free phone or merely singing along to the radio?

The New York Times should know better than to advocate for additional vague ways for police to stop and question individuals. After all, the Times did an excellent study of a “stop, question, and frisk” policing policy. The newspaper found that after a drastic decline in violent crimes in New York City, the number of stops the police made increased dramatically.

Knowing that police officers can sometimes abuse their ability to stop, question, search, and detain individuals, why would anyone advocate for more vague reasons to stop and question people? Driving dangerously is already illegal. What more do cell phone ban advocates need?

Indeed, the last thing I want to see after the passage of federal legislation that allows for the indefinite detention of U.S. citizens on U.S. soil is another vague reason that police can use to stop and search citizens.

The solution is not to ban cell phones.

I do not condone texting while driving. I also am not a fan of eating while driving, or letting your adorable pet distract you while driving. Though it would make an excellent point and is legal, I do not recommend that you hold a banana to your ear and pretend to talk to it while driving.

I was in a nearly fatal car accident when my family first moved to Michigan. The culprit? Ice. Should driving in Michigan be banned from October through April? Obviously not. Instead, I support independent groups working to inform drivers about dangerous winter driving conditions. Similarly, efforts to educate drivers about the dangers of distracted driving may end up saving lives.

But an outright ban? It is an overreaction to a tragedy.

The post What’s Next? Indefinite Detention Of People Who Text And Drive? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Riding My Bicycle, “Trusty Rusty.”
Photo Credit: Nicole Harbin

I wasn’t aware that Saint Charles was considering banning bicycles, but, thankfully, the measure didn’t pass.

Individuals may move freely in Saint Charles on a bike for the time being, but this may unfortunately change in the future. According to a KMOX article, the committee will consider two alternatives:

One would require permits for large cycling events, another would color-code certain roads to let cyclists know how dangerous they are.

Every action involves risks. It’s not the job of government to protect individuals from behavior that has internalized risks. If a person happens to view biking as very dangerous, then he or she can choose not to do do it. I bike in Saint Louis frequently, and I accept the associated risk as a free adult. I also drive my car, which also has risks — it’s possible that I could crash into a telephone pole, or another car.

Does it follow, then, that local governments should ban biking in urban areas because it is dangerous? No. To the contrary, government and urban planners often encourage biking over driving in urban areas. Biking in Saint Louis city is pretty dangerous, but the city encourages me to do it. Biking in downtown Minneapolis is similarly risky, but the local government sponsors a public bike sharing program, as I observed during my last visit.

If a local government were serious about saving its residents from physical harm, it would ban cars in addition to bikes, and it would also ban planes from flying in the airspace because one could potentially fall out of the sky and land on somebody.

Furthermore, banning bicycles would likely have the unintended consequence of making biking more dangerous. In today’s status quo, drivers look out for bicyclists because hitting one with their car will lead to severe consequences, such as getting sent to jail or paying a steep fine. If bikes were banned, drivers would be less likely to keep an eye out for those bikers who decide to brave the roads anyway.

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As if on cue, today’s Post-Dispatch has a story about a disagreement between St. Charles County and MoDOT regarding bicycle restrictions on state roads within St. Charles. One councilman, Joe Brazil (I have had the pleasure of meeting him, and we have praised him here in the past for his stances against annexation and TIF abuse), wants to ban bicyclists from certain state roads in the county. MoDOT is opposed. My purpose here is not to discuss this specific issue, but rather the process. Nonetheless, I don’t support banning bicyclists from any roads other than interstate highways, and I have to point out one comment in favor of the proposal to ban bikes by someone who, understandably, has a personal interest in the matter:

Among supporters was Stephen East of Cottleville, whose 16-year-old daughter was seriously injured in a 2003 accident on DD when the vehicle she was driving topped a hill and encountered a bicyclist in her lane. East said she swerved, ran off the road, hit a tree and was thrown from the car.

“Public safety trumps personal rights,” East said.

No, sir, it doesn’t. And it is exactly this far-too-common belief that our safety is more important than our rights that is causing us to lose our rights to safety zealots via death by a thousand cuts. I give you helmet laws, seat belt laws, closed swimming pools, and the fact that organizations can no longer just have a bake sale or parish pot luck because health regulations forbid food cooked at a home from being sold or given away elsewhere. Because, you know, that’s “dangerous.”

But I digress. MoDOT says St. Charles can’t enforce the ordinance because the Highway Commission won’t approve it. MoDOT says it simply won’t post the signs telling people about the law — making it invalid under state law, which specifies that traffic rules must be properly posted for people to see. So, if St. Charles passes the ban and MoDOT won’t allow the county to enforce it, there will be some sort of court challenge. That might be the only way to answer the question of who has final say about roads — the governmental jurisdiction that owns it or the governmental jurisdiction it passes through.

In my opinion, the final say on traffic laws should belong to the jurisdiction that builds, maintains, and “owns” the road, if for no other reason than consistency. Hopefully, this will be further clarified soon, and hopefully in a way that does not allow cities like Charlack to do whatever they please on state or county roads.

I’d be delighted to see a statewide ban on things such as red light cameras and speed cameras on all roads. As the laws are currently written, though, I don’t think there is any doubt that cities can do whatever they want on city roads. (Thanks to Combest for the link.)

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All of these laws merely skirt around the edges of the real problem, which is that far too many people are rocking out to music or yelling back at the talk show host while they are driving. This carnage must stop. In the name of safety, and to fully protect the children — whom, as you may have heard — are the future, our leaders must finally take the necessary step to protect us from ourselves by banning the outrageous practice of listening to the radio while driving. It is only right.

(Thanks to Missouri safe-driver-of-the-year John Combest for the links.)

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