Highlighting DC Families for Safe Streets Retrospective Crash Memorial Sign Posting
This September, you may have noticed an increasing number of bright yellow crash memorial signs around the District. Each sign represents a person who lost their life due to traffic violence at that location. Since 2022, the DC chapter of Families for Safe Streets has installed crash memorial signs for every person who lost their life to traffic violence in the District.
This year, DC Families for Safe Streets is retroactively installing signs to commemorate the 362 people who have lost their lives to traffic violence since 2015, the year that Mayor Bowser signed the Vision Zero Pledge committing to eliminating traffic deaths and serious roadway injuries by 2024. The retroactive sign installation commemorates the lives lost due to traffic violence since the start of Vision Zero in DC and highlights the failure to reach Vision Zero by 2024.
As of September 20, 2024, there have been 40 deaths and 252 serious injuries on DC roadways (you can find more statistics on the Vision Zero Dashboard). In the larger region of Montgomery County, Prince George’s County, DC, and Northern Virginia, 327 people lost their lives to traffic violence. Traffic deaths are one of the top causes of death for people of all ages, and the leading cause for children and adolescents.
DC Families for Safe Streets, the organization behind the sign installation efforts, works to confront the preventable epidemic of traffic violence by advocating for life-saving changes and providing support to those who have been affected by this crisis. Their victim, survivor-led movement fights to reduce the number of people killed or seriously injured in traffic crashes across the United States to zero.
DC Families for Safe Street is one of twenty Families for Safe Streets chapters nationwide. Family for Safe Streets works strategically to fight for safe streets in their local chapter communities and mobilize nationally to advocate for changes at the federal level.
Currently, Families for Safe Streets chapters across the country are undergoing a national effort to create a Story Map of people’s experience with traffic violence. You can view the map here. Additionally, there is information on the web page about how to share your story if you or a loved one have experienced traffic violence.
DC Families for Safe Streets strategically installed the crash memorial signs in advance of World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims, a global event that occurs every third Sunday of November to remember those impacted by traffic violence. World Day of Remembrance 2024 will happen on Sunday, November 17. Stay tuned on the DC-FSS website for events and activations to honor the lives lost due to traffic violence and take action to prevent roadway deaths and serious injuries.