February 25: There Are No Accidents Q&A with author Jessie Singer

There are more than 200,000 “accidental” deaths in the United States each year — traffic deaths included. But these so-called “accidents” are hardly random. Each is the “predictable result of unequal power in every form — physical and systemic,” TA Head Writer & Senior Strategist Jessie Singer writes in her new book, out now from Simon & Schuster.

We spoke with Jessie about her book and what it means for safe streets. Read our Q&A with Jessie and buy her new book, There Are No Accidents: The Deadly Rise of Injury and Disaster — Who Profits and Who Pays the Price. When you buy a book from this link, a portion of the proceeds support TA advocacy.

THREE QUESTIONS WITH JESSIE

1️⃣ What inspired you to write a book on accidents?

In 2006, my best friend was killed by a man who was drunk, speeding, and driving on Manhattan’s Hudson River Greenway. I would learn that others had been killed in crashes there, too, before and after my best friend was killed, but nothing had been done, because those were all “accidents.”

A decade later, another man would follow the exact same route as my best friend’s killer not “by accident” but with murderous intent, killing eight people with a rental truck. After, government officials protected every possible intersection of the path with bollards – making repetition of both the “accident” and the crime impossible. It was proof that my friend’s killing could have been prevented. The fact that nothing was done before is the grotesque reality that drives my book — the word “accident” is a giant rug under which we sweep a massive number of grave and preventable harms.

2️⃣ How has researching and writing this book shaped your work at TA?

When I started to investigate “accidents,” I found patterns that repeated across America and throughout history. Allegedly “random” and “unpredictable” tragedies were not random or unpredictable at all. For more than a hundred years and still today, most accidental death in America is divided along race and class lines. This is as true in New York City as elsewhere, and it is true in traffic crashes, and especially when people are killed on foot and on bike. At TA, I push for all our advocacy to directly respond to these bold-faced inequities.

3️⃣ What do you want readers to come away with after reading There Are No Accidents?

So-called accidents are not random events caused by a single bad actor, and when we think that way, we miss a wealth of opportunities for prevention. A traffic crash is not caused by one reckless driver, but exposure to layers of risk: unsafe streets, unregulated mega-SUVs, the simply dangerous condition of cars mixing with people. TA supporters know that a bike lane with steel bollards protects far more people than calling the police on a driver parked in the bike lane. This simple idea is true of every possible “accident.” Focusing on bad actors, even when they make mistakes and bad decisions, is a distraction from all the ways we can protect people from “accidental” death by simply barricading, cushioning, and separating them from the harm of any potential blow.

Two Things to Do

1️⃣ Join Bridges4People and Council Member Lincoln Restler for a Manhattan Bridge Connections Ride. Ride and see recent wins and current issues on the route to the Manhattan Bridge. Ride from Downtown Brooklyn to the Manhattan Bridge and then to the Navy Yard to advocate for safer streets for all. Meet at the northeast corner of Hoyt and Schermerhorn Streets at 2:30 p.m. tomorrow, Saturday, February 26.

2️⃣ Rally with Riders Alliance better buses on Monday. Join bus riders and advocates at 11 a.m., Monday, February 28, at Brooklyn Borough Hall to urge city leaders to prioritize the changes that bus riders need for faster, more reliable, comfortable, and accessible commutes. We’ll have food, music, and plenty of bus rider cheer!

One Action To Take Now

Participate in New York State’s first bike census. New York State wants to hear from you about your biking habits for its first New York Bike Census. It only takes 5 minutes and will help the state plan for the future of multimodal transportation.

Thanks for reading! Have a great weekend and we’ll see you soon.
Jacob and the TA team

P.S. — DC, Philly, and Boston all contribute public money to their bike share networks. NYC contributes nothing. We wrote a new op-ed with Council Member Amanda Farias calling on the Adams administration to put funding in the upcoming budget to fund Citi Bike so it can expand faster to more neighborhoods.