Is anyone safe in DC crosswalks when one dangerous driver per minute passes by?

My four-year-old son Nathan asks me almost every day to “promise that [he] won’t get hit by a car again.” Last month, Nathan was struck while with his mother in the crosswalk closest to our Dupont Circle home by the driver of an SUV who ran through the 4-way stop sign.

Nathan walked away with only bruises, but I’ve been reminded of “what could have been” almost every week since then, as more pedestrians face traffic violence across our city.

I set out to better understand what was happening in the intersection by my house and how we might create safer streets in every ward.

One dangerous driver per minute passed through a single intersection in Dupont Circle

I started by running my own “traffic safety assessment” with a camera mounted to my rooftop, overlooking the intersection at New Hampshire Avenue NW and S Street NW, where Nathan was struck. I recorded and logged what I saw during peak traffic times, from 5 to 5:30 pm, over a period of five days to see for myself how drivers were behaving. I was astounded by what I observed:

During an average day from 5 to 5:30 pm at New Hampshire Ave and S Street NW, I recorded:

• About 330 vehicles, 200 pedestrians, and 66 cyclists and scooters crossed the intersection.
• About 150 vehicles failed to fully stop before the crosswalk.
• About 35 of those 150 vehicles presented an immediate danger to our community, failing to stop at all or entering the crosswalk while there was a pedestrian crossing in front of them during my 30-minute recording window.

Consider that for a moment.

Every single minute a dangerous driver passed through a single intersection in a residential community here in DC during peak times for walkers, bikers, and drivers.

Pedestrians should be rightly concerned about navigating the streets in our community. A recent DDOT “Safe Routes to School” report for the streets around Ross Elementary school, where Nathan attends school two blocks from our home, found that “pedestrian and bicyclist involved collisions have occurred at every intersection [between 2015 and 2020].” During my traffic camera experiment, I observed dozens of events when pedestrians faced dangerous driving.

Several pedestrians had to dodge a tour bus failing to yield on one side of the intersection, while a large SUV prepared to go from another.

A woman carrying a child had to jump back to the curb from the crosswalk multiple times and then run across the intersection as cars repeatedly passed by failing to yield.

Incidents like these continue to occur across DC and are prevalent in every ward. A recent study by the DC Policy Center documented these incidents across the city. It also points out that many of these incidents have not been tracked. Upwards of 30% of incidents involving a pedestrian outside a vehicle that resulted in a 911 call were not actually logged by the Metropolitan Police Department.

When incidents like these continue to occur across the city, we have to acknowledge that we face an endemic problem that requires systemic changes.

Can simple changes cut dangerous driving by 66%?

After Nathan was struck, I began working closely with our Advisory Neighborhood Commission (ANC 2B) and with the community relations teams at the Mayor’s office and DDOT to pursue changes to the intersections in Dupont Circle and across our city. I also ran a small experiment with significant impact.

I observed a 66% reduction in dangerous driving behaviors with one simple change. On “Walk to School Day,” I placed a child sized statue, “Captain Safety,” in the center of the crosswalk holding a sign reading “Drive like your kids live here.” With an unusual, physical reminder in the middle of the crosswalk like “Captain Safety,” 66% fewer vehicles passed the intersection without slowing down or failing to yield to pedestrians. Unfortunately the total number of cars that did not fully stop stayed the same, but the behavior change could be enough to save lives.

If simple changes that increase driver awareness can reduce dangerous driving, we should be moving much faster to implement these across the District. We must accelerate interventions that force drivers to pay attention while redesigning our streets to put pedestrians first.

Whole city speed limit reductions championed by Mayor Bowser and Vision Zero could have been a factor in why Nathan’s crash wasn’t fatal. However, too many examples of crashes with fatal or significant injuries continue.

Our ANC unanimously approved a resolution calling for immediate improvements at New Hampshire Ave and S Street NW and others. The resolution also calls for immediate implementation of DDOT’s own Safe Routes To School recommendations throughout the neighborhood.

A committee of the DCPS Ross Elementary PTA supported this DDOT initiative for over two years and has pointed out that there has been no action since the report was completed nearly a year ago. The Safe Routes to School recommendations include:

• Installing new school zone and speed limit signage with camera enforcement in all school zones across DC
• Installing new School Crossing sign between 17th & S Streets NW
• Repairing school crossing, speed limit, and no parking signage around the school
• Upgrading and remarking all crosswalks within ¼ mile of [Ross Elementary] to high visibility crosswalks
• Installing traffic calming measures at intersections and mid-block on Corcoran Street
• Installing a mid-block crossing on R Street NW in front of school
• Installing raised crosswalks at New Hampshire Ave & S St, R St & 18th St, R St & 17th St, R St & 18thSt, Q St & 18th St

Even bolder actions are being pursued in cities around the country and around the world (like 25x25 NYC which is trying to restore significant roadway for pedestrian use). I’m hopeful that the groundswell caused by these recent events will create the opportunity to pursue more aggressive and urgent actions like these, starting by reclassifying all neighborhood streets for lower vehicle volumes and speeds across the city to enable more calming measures to be put in place, building out the network of protected bike lanes, and returning some streets to primarily pedestrian use.

DDOT’s community relations team is helping to pursue additional stop signs, repainting the crosswalks, and adding curb extensions with flex posts at some of the intersections near where Nathan was struck. I was initially told this could take until the middle of next year, but DDOT’s acceleration program may yield changes faster.

On Monday (Oct. 25), the first signs of action appeared as DDOT installed new stop signs at New Hampshire Ave NW and S St NW and a new crossing guard joined the Ross Elementary community. However, much is still to be done to address the critical needs identified in the Safe Routes to School plan to protect children and adults alike. I have requested an “on the record” statement from DDOT about these efforts, but one was not yet provided at the time of publication.

These road violence incidents and the timelines to install corrections are unacceptable for a world-leading city of vibrant residential neighborhoods. Support to make aggressive changes is mounting in every ward across the District.

I’m calling on Mayor Bowser and DDOT to make the pedestrian safety blitz a top priority for the administration and not a one time event. At least one reckless driver per minute continues to encounter six pedestrians per minute at New Hampshire Ave and S Street NW during rush hour. More collisions with pedestrians are a certainty we shouldn’t accept when the solutions are clear and available.