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FW: Public Comment - September 15, 2026 City Council Agenda - Item 3.4 Traffic Fatalities and Serious Injuries
From City Clerk <[email protected]>
Date Tue 9/15/2026 7:37 AM
To Agendadesk <[email protected]>
From: brian darby
Sent: Monday, September 14, 2026 4:47 PM
To: City Clerk <[email protected]>
Subject: Public Comment - September 15, 2026 City Council Agenda - Item 3.4 Traffic Fatalities and Serious Injuries
[External Email. Do not open links or attachments from untrusted sources. Learn morel September 14, 2026
Dear Mayor Mahan and Members of the City Council:
I am writing regarding the traffic-safety findings contained in Agenda Item 3.4, the City Council Focus Area Annual Report for Fiscal Year 2025-2026.
The report contains encouraging informat ion about several City programs. Nevertheless, its traffic safety results should receive considerably more attention than a routine acceptance of an annual report.
San Jose recorded 49 traffic fatalities during Fiscal Year 2025-2026, compared with 40 during the previous fiscal year. That is an increase of nine deaths, or 22.5%. The report also states that 140 killed or-severely-injured events were recorded from July through December 2025, compared with 125 during the corresponding prior-year period-an increase of 12%.
These are not stable or satisfactory results. They represent a measurable worsening in the most consequential traffic outcomes.
Forty-nine people are not simply a data point. They were residents, relatives, friends, coworkers, pedestrians, bicyclists, motorcyclists, drivers, and passengers. Each death affected a family and a community . Serious injuries can produce permanent disability, chronic pain, lost employment, medical debt, dependence on caregivers, and years of rehabilitation .
The City adopted Vision Zero in 2015 and now has stated goals of reducing deaths and serious injuries by 30% by 2030 and eliminating them by 2040. Yet the latest annual report shows fatalities moving in the wrong direction.
The Council should not accept completion of traffic-safety activities as a substitute for improvement in traffic-safety outcomes.
Completed Projects Versus Actual Safety
The report states that the City completed all 58 planned traffic-safety improvements: three capital projects, 20 quick-build projects, 20 pedestrian-safety enhancements, and 15 neighborhood traffic calming measures. Completing every planned project is a legitimate operational accomplishment.
At the same time, fatalities increased from 40 to 49, and killed-or-severely-injured events increased in the available comparable period.
Both facts must be considered together. "We completed what we planned" and "more people were killed" cannot be presented as though they demonstrate the same kind of success.
The Council should ask whether the 58 projects were placed at the locations of greatest danger, whether they addressed the principal causes of fatal crashes, and whether their designs were strong enough to change driver behavior. The City should report before-and-after speeds, crashes, serious injuries, fatalities, and near misses at each improved location.
San Jose's Vision Zero webpage states that approximately 46% of fatal and serious-injury crashes occur on designated Priority Safety Corridors. That concentration should make it possible to direct engineering, enforcement, and technology toward a manageable portion of the roadway network. The Council should be shown how much of the FY 2025-2026 safety investment was directed to those corridors and whether outcomes improved where the money was spent.
Speeding and Red-Light Running
As a San Jose resident, I regularly observe vehicles exceeding posted speed limits and entering intersections after signals have turned red. I recognize that personal observation is not a substitute for systematic data. In this case, however, the City's own evidence confirms that dangerous driving behavior is widespread.
The annual report states that San Jose's four red-light-camera intersections generated more than 6,200 citations during their first six months:
• approximately 2,500 at Bascom Avenue and Camden Avenue; • approximately 1,700 at Leigh Avenue and Parkmoor Avenue; • approximately 1,450 at Keyes Street and Third Street; and • approximately 580 at Monterey Road and Branham Avenue.
The number of monthly citations fell from 1,396 during the first reporting period to 632 during the sixth, a 55% reduction. Approximately 99% of cited drivers received only one citation.
Those results suggest that automated enforcement can change behavior. They also demonstrate the scale of the initial problem. More than 6,200 citations at only four intersections in six months should lead the Council to ask how many other intersections have comparable violations but no automated monitoring.
Citation reductions are promising, but the final test is whether crashes, injuries, and deaths decline.
The Transportation Department plans to present a crash and fatality analysis in early 2027. That evaluation should compare each camera location before and after installation, examine right-angle and rear-end crashes separately, account for changes in traffic volume, and compare the results with similar intersections without cameras.
The City also planned to install 33 automated speed-enforcement cameras along priority corridors by June 2026. That objective was only partially completed because anticipated federal grant funding was lost. Staff is now pursuing local funding and negotiating with a vendor.
Speeding is not a secondary concern. The City has identified it as the leading known cause of fatal and serious-injury crashes in San Jose. In 2024, 39 of the City's 49 traffic deaths occurred on streets posted at 35 miles per hour or higher, and nine were directly attributed to speeding.
The Council should request a firm public schedule for installing all 33 speed cameras, identify the remaining funding gap, and evaluate whether local money can accelerate deployment. The City should also publish before-and-after speed distributions-not merely average speeds-so the public can see whether extreme speeding is declining.
The Economic Cost
Traffic crashes impose enormous costs in addition to their human toll. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimated that motor-vehicle crashes cost the United States $340 billion in 2019.
That total included medical expenses, emergency services, lost workplace and household productivity, insurance administration, property damage, congestion, and legal and court costs. NHTSA estimated that taxpayers directly absorbed approximately $30 billion, equivalent to roughly $230 in added taxes per American household.
The Metropolitan Transportation Commission reports that more than 400 people are killed and approximately 1,500 are seriously injured annually on Bay Area streets and roads.
San Jose should quantify its own economic burden. The City's annual report should estimate the local costs associated with fatalities and serious injuries, including emergency response, police investigation, fire and ambulance service, hospitalization, roadway closures, congestion, property damage, lost productivity, disability, and long-term public assistance.
Even when a safety improvement requires substantial funding, it may save public and private money by preventing only a small number of catastrophic crashes.
Development-Related Traffic Analysis
I am also concerned about how transportation effects are evaluated when development projects are considered.
The City's Transportation Analysis webpage confirms that Transportation Analysis and Local Transportation Analysis reports are prepared by a traffic consultant hired by the project applicant. City staff works with the consultant, identifies the intersections to be studied, supplies available information, reviews the completed report, and determines whether it complies with City policies.
The City's review provides an important safeguard, and I am not alleging that consultants or City employees are acting improperly. Nevertheless, having the applicant select and pay the consultant creates at least the appearance of a conflict. The applicant has a financial interest in project approval, while the consultant depends on applicants for business.
For major or potentially high-impact developments, San Jose should consider an alternative model under which:
1. The applicant pays the full cost of the analysis.
2. The City selects the consultant from an independently maintained, rotating list of qualified firms.
3. The consultant's contractual duty is expressly owed to the City.
4. City staff or an independent peer reviewer verifies the assumptions, raw counts, methods, and conclusions.
5. The complete analysis, raw data, model inputs, comments, revisions, and responses are published before the public hearing.
At minimum, independent peer review should be required for projects near Priority Safety Corridors, schools, senior facilities, disability services, high-pedestrian areas, major event venues, or locations with a history of fatal and serious-injury crashes.
Timing and Scope of Traffic Counts
The City's April 2023 Transportation Analysis Handbook states that new intersection counts are generally required when the most recent counts in the City database are more than two years old. It directs consultants to collect morning and evening two-hour peak-period counts on Tuesdays through Thursdays, during non-holiday periods, outside the week of a holiday, and under fair-weather conditions. The City may require a nonstandard counting period for certain land uses.
Using an ordinary Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday can provide a useful baseline for normal weekday travel. However, it is only a snapshot. It may fail to capture the periods when a particular development creates its greatest risks.
A study of a school should include arrival and dismissal. A religious institution may require weekend analysis. A restaurant or entertainment district may require Friday- and Saturday-night counts. A stadium, convention facility, shopping destination, or event venue may require analysis during actual high-attendance events. A development near a holiday attraction may require seasonal counts. A project affecting shift workers may require early-morning or late-night analysis.
The purpose should not be to select the quietest or busiest imaginable moment. It should be to identify all reasonably foreseeable periods when the proposed use could create significant congestion or safety risks.
I ask the Council to direct staff to strengthen the policy by requiring:
• current counts rather than automatically relying on data approaching two years old in rapidly changing areas;
• multiple representative days;
• school, weekend, evening, seasonal, and special-event periods when relevant; • pedestrian, wheelchair, bicycle, motorcycle, transit, and vehicle movements; • turning speeds and approach speeds, not merely traffic volume; • collision and near-miss histories;
• cumulative analysis of approved projects that have not yet opened; • evaluation of construction-period traffic and blocked sidewalks or bicycle routes; and • follow-up counts after occupancy to determine whether projections were accurate.
A technically accurate estimate of average weekday vehicle miles traveled is not, by itself, a complete safety analysis. Vehicle Miles Traveled is important for evaluating driving demand and environmental effects, but the Council also needs information about dangerous intersections, turning conflicts, pedestrian exposure, vehicle speeds, nighttime conditions, and emergency access.
Public Responsibility and Safer Driving
Responsibility for traffic safety does not belong solely to the City Council, City staff, police officers, traffic engineers, or developers. It also belongs to every person who drives, walks, bicycles, or otherwise uses San Jose's streets.
No amount of engineering or enforcement can substitute completely for responsible conduct. Drivers have a personal and civic obligation to obey speed limits, stop at red lights and stop signs, yield to pedestrians, leave adequate following distance, avoid distracted or impaired driving, and exercise additional care around schools, construction zones, senior facilities, bicyclists, and people with disabilities.
A person who speeds or enters an intersection against a red light is not merely accepting a personal risk. That person is imposing a risk on everyone nearby, including people who had no choice in the matter. A few seconds saved cannot justify taking someone else's life or leaving another person permanently injured.
The public should therefore be part of the City's strategy. Enforcement is necessary, especially where serious violations are persistent. Education is also necessary, but it should be direct, repeated, multilingual, and connected to actual local crash data. Community organizations, employers, schools, driving instructors, insurance companies, transportation providers, and neighborhood associations should be invited to reinforce the same message.
The City should publish understandable information explaining where fatal crashes occur, what behaviors cause them, and what residents can do. Drivers also need to understand that automated cameras, redesigned streets, lower speed limits, and traffic enforcement are not simply revenue or inconvenience measures. When properly designed and evaluated, they are intended to prevent deaths and serious injuries.
At the same time, asking the public to drive responsibly does not relieve the City of its obligations.
People will sometimes make mistakes or exercise poor judgment. The Safe System approach correctly recognizes that streets should be designed so an ordinary mistake is less likely to become a death sentence. Public responsibility, effective enforcement, careful development review, and safer street design must operate together.
Council Attention and Accountability
The Council regularly discusses state, national, and international issues. Those issues can be important, and resolutions can express the values of the community. Traffic safety, however, is an area in which the City Council has direct authority over street design, speed management, development conditions, traffic signals, automated enforcement, capital priorities, and local funding.
That direct responsibility should be reflected in the amount of Council attention devoted to the issue.
I respectfully ask the Council to direct the Administration to return with a focused traffic-safety accountability report that includes:
1. A detailed explanation of the increase from 40 to 49 fatalities.
2. Complete fatality and serious-injury data by transportation mode, Council district, location, corridor, time, lighting condition, roadway design, posted speed, and primary collision factor .
3. Identification of the locations and causes responsible for the largest share of the increase.
4. Before-and-after results for the 58 completed safety projects.
5. A funded installation schedule for the 33 planned speed cameras.
6. A rigorous safety evaluation of the four red-light-camera intersections and criteria for expanding the program.
7. A review of whether safety investments are sufficiently concentrated on Priority Safety Corridors.
8. Proposed reforms to improve the independence, transparency, timing, and scope of development-related transportation studies.
9. A local estimate of the public and economic costs of fatal and serious-injury crashes.
10. Quarterly public reporting through an accessible dashboard, accompanied by Council or committee review when results move in the wrong direction .
11. A sustained public-education and enforcement strategy that clearly calls upon motorists to accept personal responsibility for safe and lawful driving .
The City's Safe System principles recognize that people make mistakes and that the transportation system should be designed so those mistakes do not result in death or permanent injury. That principle is especially important for children, older adults, pedestrians, bicyclists, and people with disabilities, who may have less ability to avoid a fast-moving vehicle or recover from a collision .
The increase to 49 deaths requires more than acknowledging that traffic safety "remains stable." A
22.5% increase in fatalities is not stable in the ordinary meaning of that word . It is a warning that deserves focused analysis, visible Council oversight, corrective action, effective enforcement, and greater responsibility from the driving public.
I support the City's safety projects, red-light cameras, planned speed cameras, enforcement efforts, and use of the Safe System approach. My concern is that the scale and urgency of the response do not yet match the human consequences shown in the City's own report.
Please treat the increase in traffic deaths and serious injuries as a major public-safety issue within the Council's direct responsibility and as a challenge requiring the cooperation of the entire community.
Forty-nine lost lives are forty-nine reasons for the City to act and for every member of the public to drive more responsibly.
Thank you for considering these comments and for including them in the public record for Agenda Item 3.4.
Respectfully,
Brian Darby
• I • • • • I •
Sources referenced:
City of San Jose, City Council Focus Area Annual Report for Fiscal Year 2025-2026, Agenda Item 3.4, September 15, 2026.
City of San Jose, Vision Zero Traffic Safety:
httP-s:Uwww.sanjoseca.gov/your-government/deP.artments-offices/transP-ortation/safety/vision-zero City of San Jose, Transportation Analysis:
htt12s:Uwww.sanjoseca.gov/your-government/deP.artments-offices/public-works/develoP-ment services/trans12ortation-analysis
City of San Jose, Transportation Analysis Handbook, April 2023.
Metropolitan Transportation Commission, Bay Area Vision Zero Working Group:
htt12s:Umtc.ca.gov/planning/trans12ortation/access-egill1Y.-mobility~-area-vision-zero-working:-_ grou12
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, "Traffic Crashes Cost America $340 Billion in 2019":
htt12s:Uwww.nhtsa.gov/press-re1eases/traffic-crashes-cost-america-bil1ions-2019 This message is from outside the City email system. Do not open links or attachments from untrusted sources.