How Do We Make City Streets Safer?
The reports that “312 people were killed in traffic collisions in 2022, a 5% increase over the previous year and a 29% increase over 2020.†Additionally, “159 people [were] killed in collisions involving pedestrians and motorists last year.†According to the paper, “This is a 19% rise compared with 2021,†and further, “[an] additional 20 people died in collisions involving bicyclists and motorists, an 11% rise.â€
Taken together with the during traffic stops, these statistics have made in the nation.
Damien Kevitt, executive director of the L.A.-based organization spoke with YES! Racial Justice Editor Sonali Kolhatkar on Rising Up With Sonali about the solutions that his organization is advocating for to make city streets safer.
The views expressed here and on Rising Up With Sonali do not necessarily reflect the opinion of YES! ÎÞÂëÊÓƵ.
Sonali Kolhatkar
joined YES! in summer 2021, building on a long and decorated career in broadcast and print journalism. She is an award-winning multimedia journalist, and host and creator of YES! Presents: Rising Up with Sonali, a nationally syndicated television and radio program airing on Free Speech TV and dozens of independent and community radio stations. She is also Senior Correspondent with the Independent ÎÞÂëÊÓƵ Institute’s Economy for All project where she writes a weekly column. She is the author of Rising Up: The Power of Narrative in Pursuing Racial Justice (2023) and Bleeding Afghanistan: Washington, Warlords, and the Propaganda of Silence (2005). Her forthcoming book is called Talking About Abolition (Seven Stories Press, 2025). Sonali is co-director of the nonprofit group, Afghan Women’s Mission which she helped to co-found in 2000. She has a Master’s in Astronomy from the University of Hawai’i, and two undergraduate degrees in Physics and Astronomy from the University of Texas at Austin. Sonali reflects on “My Journey From Astrophysicist to Radio Host†in her 2014  of the same name.
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