In the third of four Road Safety Summit Meetings conducted around the City of Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn and Dr. David Fleming Seattle and King County Director of Public Health attempted to get the public involved and gain insights into the issues surrounding road safety. The meeting was held at the SW Community Center, Monday, Nov. 21.

The process involves asking three primary questions:

1. What do you think are the highest priority safety problems to solve on Seattle roads?
2. What do you think are the most important things to do to make Seattle roads safer?
3. We often talk about what government can do to promote safety. What are the ways that non-governmental groups and individuals can promote safety?

The West Seattle meeting was well attended with more than 40 people present.

McGinn said, "Our primary goal is that people feel very strongly about how our roads are used and we want to start a community conversation about, 'How can we use our roads in a way that enhances safety and enhances the respect that everyone has for others on the road?' By having these community dialogs, that conversation is important. We're going to learn. We can't tell people what's best for them. We've got to hear from them what's bugging them first. We have to understand what their concerns are so we can come up with a set of recommendations that speaks to them."

Dr. Fleming followed up and said, "Traffic injuries are a major public health problem. That's why I'm here tonight. But they are solvable because ultimately they are the result of behaviors and actions that we can modify so there's a real opportunity for prevention. We need hear the good ideas from the community but we can do something about this problem."

McGinn pointed out that public safety has been improved in the past despite people's doubts that change was possible, pointing to smoking, now greatly reduced, and seatbelt laws. "We can change," he said emphatically.

In his remarks to the meeting Dr. Fleming said that while traffic fatalities were in decline in recent years the reduction in the number of deaths and serious injuries can be greatly improved. A document provided at the meeting states, " Over a five year timespan in King County, motor vehicle collisions were the cause of 124 deaths each year. For people ages 5 to 24, motor vehicle collisions are the leading cause of death in Washington State."

The document, through tables and graphs illustrates that for example in 2010 there were 11,913 collisions in Seattle with the highest number, 2,462 or 21% being collisions with parked cars. In 2010, impaired driving was the reason for 13 fatalities accounting for 52% of Seattle traffic deaths.

Following the opening remarks was a group discussion as each table answered the questions and explored suggestions.

The final 20 minutes was dedicated to a review of the ideas offered by those involved.

West Seattle resident Paul Jung said he was there because, "I think everybody should obey the rules, and they don't enforce it. I work at Safeco all the time and I see people do whatever they want to do. I live here and see the guys ride their bikes every morning cut the corners, don't stop, no lights on them. They have almost nothing in the drivers manual for bicycle rules."

The ideas and data gathered at these public forums (and information collected online as well) is compiled and put into a document that first goes out to the Summit Workgroup members, approximately 30 people from across various fields, who will review and compile all the ideas offered, and create a list of action items.

You can view a previous Road Safety Summit on the Seattle Channel here.

Final Road Safety Summit Meeting
Monday, December 12th, 6 pm to 8 pm in the Bertha Knight Landes room at City Hall.

The Summit Workgroup will present their conclusions at this meeting.

What ends up as policy, law, or program depends a lot on what ideas are arrived at through the process. "Maybe it's an education campaign," said Rebecca Deerh, Policy Analyst in the Mayor's office."We definitely wanted things coming out of this to be representative of a shared city wide commitment and not just 'what can government do. It's about, how can we all do something to improve road safety?"