There Are No Accidents: Racism, Poverty, and the Illusion of Human Error in America's Traffic "Accident" Epidemic with Jessie Singer

Just Streets Autumn 2023 Series Flyer
October 20, 2023
12:00PM - 1:00PM
Online Webinar (Zoom): Register using the registration link at the bottom of the page

Date Range
2023-10-20 12:00:00 2023-10-20 13:00:00 There Are No Accidents: Racism, Poverty, and the Illusion of Human Error in America's Traffic "Accident" Epidemic with Jessie Singer Online Webinar (Zoom): Register using the registration link at the bottom of the page The rising rate of traffic fatalities is not an accident but the predictable result of policy choices masked by the illusion of human error. Proof can be found in other countries where far fewer die in traffic -- the product of a built environment designed for different priorities, not a miraculous infallible populace. This lecture will explain historic and modern racial and economic disparities in traffic fatalities, how the death toll is fueled by policy and infrastructure that puts the most vulnerable in harm's way, and the economic, bureaucratic, and psychological rationalizations that keep us all focused on human error over systemic solutions to the so-called "accident" problem.   Jessie Singer is a journalist and author of "There Are No Accidents: The Deadly Rise of Injury and Disaster -- Who Profits and Who Pays the Price"-- a Slate, Fortune Magazine, Mother Jones, and The Economist best book of the year. She is an expert in safe systems, injury prevention, harm reduction, and the ongoing rise in traffic fatalities, drug overdoses, falls, and other areas of injury-related death. Jessie's writing appears in the Washington Post, The Atlantic, The Nation, Bloomberg, New York magazine, The Guardian, and elsewhere. She studied journalism at the Arthur L. Carter School of Journalism at New York University, and under the wing of the late investigative journalist Wayne Barrett. This autumn, CURA and the Kirwan Institute have co-sponsored a webinar series that will invite transportation scholars, social justice advocates, and community engagement leaders to look at both the safety and social justice impacts of our street design. This event is approved for 1 AICP CM credit. To claim your CM credits, log into your My APA account on the APA website and enter the event into your online CM event log. Online Webinar (Zoom): Register using the registration link at the bottom of the page America/New_York public

Online Webinar (Zoom): Register using the registration link at the bottom of the page

The rising rate of traffic fatalities is not an accident but the predictable result of policy choices masked by the illusion of human error. Proof can be found in other countries where far fewer die in traffic -- the product of a built environment designed for different priorities, not a miraculous infallible populace. This lecture will explain historic and modern racial and economic disparities in traffic fatalities, how the death toll is fueled by policy and infrastructure that puts the most vulnerable in harm's way, and the economic, bureaucratic, and psychological rationalizations that keep us all focused on human error over systemic solutions to the so-called "accident" problem.  

Jessie Singer is a journalist and author of "There Are No Accidents: The Deadly Rise of Injury and Disaster -- Who Profits and Who Pays the Price"-- a Slate, Fortune Magazine, Mother Jones, and The Economist best book of the year. She is an expert in safe systems, injury prevention, harm reduction, and the ongoing rise in traffic fatalities, drug overdoses, falls, and other areas of injury-related death. Jessie's writing appears in the Washington Post, The Atlantic, The Nation, Bloomberg, New York magazine, The Guardian, and elsewhere. She studied journalism at the Arthur L. Carter School of Journalism at New York University, and under the wing of the late investigative journalist Wayne Barrett.

This autumn, CURA and the Kirwan Institute have co-sponsored a webinar series that will invite transportation scholars, social justice advocates, and community engagement leaders to look at both the safety and social justice impacts of our street design.

This event is approved for 1 AICP CM credit. To claim your CM credits, log into your My APA account on the APA website and enter the event into your online CM event log.

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