New ‘Safe System’ policy to end King County traffic deaths

‘Safe System’ policy to end King County traffic deaths approved

Shirah Matsuzawa walks us through the new committee-approved plan to curb traffic deaths in King County.

SEATTLE - An end to traffic deaths in King County--that’s the goal of King County Councilmember Claudia Balducci’s ‘Safe System’ policy. She introduced the proposal in June, and recently, the committee approved that proposal.

"The human toll of traffic deaths and serious injuries is not something we can accept, we have to push with all the tools we have at our disposal to minimize and hopefully eliminate all of the serious injuries and deaths because every one of those statistics are a person," Balducci said.

The safe system policy is a category of approaches to creating a safe transportation system. Balducci told FOX 13, there are different kinds and the most well-known is Vision Zero, which several jurisdictions have adopted. This policy would take a wider, whole system, multi-agency approach in King County to make roads, trails, bike lanes and crossings safer through engineering, education and enforcement, according to Balducci.

"What we want to see is every level of government with all our different responsibilities working together so that we have coordinated approaches," Balducci said. "We should have safe roads, safe vehicles, we should have policies and education for people that makes for safe road users and pedestrians."

Last year, King County saw 167 traffic-related deaths, according to the news release. Balducci told FOX 13, that’s double the number of deaths from 10 years ago.

"A 165% increase in pedestrian deaths with an estimated societal cost of $5.5 billion," Balducci said. "So there’s the human tragedy and toll of people killed on our roads, but it also costs our economy a tremendous amount of money." Which is why she said, we need to do better. "We can make the system better, we can save lives and I feel confidence in our ability to do so and a great deal of urgency to move forward and make our system safer," Balducci said.

A King County Council spokesperson told FOX 13; the ‘Safe System’ policy will now be on the full council consent agenda on August 20.