A presentation by Aaron Naparstek, delivered at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design
If you ever want to kill someone New York or just about any other American city, use a car as your weapon. As long as you are sober, licensed and do not flee the scene of the "accident," it is virtually guaranteed that you will get away with murder. Around the world, 1.3 million people die in road traffic crashes and 20 to 50 million more are injured each year. It is a massive global health crisis that, for the most part, we ignore. Streetsblog founder and Harvard Loeb Fellow Aaron Naparstek discusses emerging new perspectives on motor vehicle violence and the critical role that urban planners, designers, police and public health practitioners must play in solving the problem.
17. Is it really still an “accident” when you run someone over intentionally?
intentionally
accident
accident
18. We weren’t always so blasé about “accidents.”
The Brooklyn Death-o-Meter, 1927.
19. A 3,000 percent increase in U.S. auto fatalities from 1901 to 1923.
Source: Peter Norton, “Fighting Traffic.”
20. Most of the people being killed by cars were pedestrians.
City of Philadelphia, 1928.
Source: Peter Norton, “Fighting Traffic.”
21. And most of those pedestrian fatalities were children.
Source: Peter Norton, “Fighting Traffic.”
22. City streets weren’t always the sole domain of motor vehicles.
Mulberry Street, Manhattan’s Lower East Side, circa 1900.
Source: Library of Congress Photocrom Collection
23. “Blood, grief and anger in the American city… a violent revolution.”
Memorial to Child “Accident” Victims. Baltimore, Maryland, 1922.
Source: Peter Norton, “Fighting Traffic.”
37. Crane Topples in Manhattan, Killing at Least 4 People.
“This is an absolute disgrace. We
need better inspection and more
resources.”
-- Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer.
43. The Lefevre case is not unique.
Marilyn Dershowitz
Aileen McKay-Dalton Michele Matson
Margaret Myers Dashane Santana
Stefanos Tsigrimanis Rasha Shamoon
When I was 15, first time I got behind the wheel of a car for my first driver’s license, the first thing my dad told me is that “a car is a weapon.” He wouldn’t let me start the engine until I repeated that back to him. Unfortunately, our police, press, politicians and popular culture seem to have a very different view of this than my father. Thanks to the work of a crusading attorney named SteveVaccaro we are starting to get a much clearer view of how the NYPD views motor vehicle deaths on NYC streets. I believe this will soon be considered a major scandal.