• Killed by a Traffic Engineer
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Killed by a Traffic Engineer

Killed by a Traffic Engineer

9781642833300

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Thoroughly researched and compellingly written, Killed by a Traffic Engineer is the first book to uncover the lack of science behind traffic engineering, leaving readers inspired to take action and demand streets engineered for the safety of people



In the US we are nearing four million road deaths since we began counting them in 1899. The numbers are getting worse in recent years, yet we continue to accept these deaths as part of doing business. There has been no examination of why we engineer roads that are literally killing us.



Fixing the carnage on our roadways requires a change in mindset and a dramatic transformation of transportation. This goes for traffic engineers in particular because they are still the ones in charge of our streets.



In Killed by a Traffic Engineer, civil engineering professor Wes Marshall shines a spotlight on how little science there is behind the way that our streets are engineered, which leaves safety as an afterthought. While traffic engineers are not trying to cause deliberate harm to anyone, he explains, they are guilty of creating a transportation system whose designs remain largely based on plausible, but unproven, conjecture.



Thoroughly researched and compellingly written, Killed by a Traffic Engineer shows how traffic engineering “research” is outdated and unexamined (at its best) and often steered by an industry and culture considering only how to get from point A to B the fastest way possible, to the detriment of safety, quality of life, equality, and planetary health. Marshall examines our need for speed and how traffic engineers disconnected it from safety, the focus on capacity and how it influences design, blaming human error, relying on faulty data, how liability drives reporting, measuring road safety outcomes, and the education (and reeducation) of traffic engineers.



Killed by a Traffic Engineer is ultimately hopeful about what is possible once we shift our thinking and demand streets engineered for the safety of people, both outside and inside of cars. It will make you look at your city and streets—and traffic engineers— in a new light and inspire you to take action.


<p>Wes Marshall, PhD, PE, is professor of Civil Engineering with a joint appointment in Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Colorado Denver. He is also the director of the CU Denver Transportation Research Center and co-director of the Active Communities/Transportation (ACT) research group. He received his Professional Engineering license in 2003 and focuses on transportation teaching and research dedicated to creating a more sustainable and resilient world, particularly in terms of road safety. Having spent time in the private sector, Wes has been working on these issues for more than 25 years. With over 80 peer-reviewed publications, Wes was also the winner of the Campus-wide University of Colorado Denver Outstanding Faculty in Research Award.</p><br>

<p>Part 1: What Are We Doing Here?<br /><br>Chapter 1: Bad Medicine<br /><br>Chapter 2: Deal or No Deal<br /><br>Chapter 3: Murder Incorporated<br /><br>Chapter 4: Hand-Me-Downs<br /><br>Chapter 5: Passing the Buck<br /><br>Chapter 6: Won’t Someone Please Think of the Children?<br /><br>Chapter 7: Little Lies<br /><br>Chapter 8: Science versus Faith<br /><br>Chapter 9: Killed by a Traffic Engineer?<br /><br>Chapter 10: The Three E’s<br /><br>Chapter 11: You Could Learn a Lot from a Dummy<br /><br>Chapter 12: License to Drive<br /><br>Chapter 13: Good Cop, Bad Cop<br /><br>Chapter 14: Can We Fix It?<br /><br>Chapter 15: Fast Times<br /><br>Chapter 16: Safety for Whom?<br /><br>Chapter 17: Full of Hot Air<br /><br>Chapter 18: How Much Is Your Life Worth?<br /><br>Chapter 19: The Cost of Doing Business<br /><br>Chapter 20: Do Better, Be Better<br /><br><br /><br>Part 2: Mismeasuring Safety<br /><br>Chapter 21: The Relativity of Safety<br /><br>Chapter 22: Exposing Exposure<br /><br>Chapter 23: The Mirage of More Mileage<br /><br>Chapter 24: Why Didn’t the Chicken Cross the Road?<br /><br>Chapter 25: Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff<br /><br>Chapter 26: The Conflict Conflict<br /><br>Chapter 27: Conflating Congestion<br /><br>Chapter 28: Aiming in the Wrong Direction<br /><br><br /><br>Part 3: Make No Mistake<br /><br>Chapter 29: The Human Error False Flag<br /><br>Chapter 30: What Is Predictable Is Preventable<br /><br>Chapter 31: The Errors beneath the Errors<br /><br>Chapter 32: Tip of the Wrong Iceberg<br /><br>Chapter 33: Bad Apples<br /><br>Chapter 34: Wishful Technological Thinking<br /><br>Chapter 35: Not So Simple<br /><br>Chapter 36: I Wish I Knew<br /><br>Chapter 37: Why and Why Not?<br /><br>Chapter 38: Cold, Wet, and a Little Embarrassed<br /><br><br /><br>Part 4: I Feel the Need for Speed<br /><br>Chapter 39: Disconnecting Speed from Safety<br /><br>Chapter 40: What’s Up with That?<br /><br>Chapter 41: Reasonable and Prudent<br /><br>Chapter 42: Lukewarm Chicken<br /><br>Chapter 43: Be Careful What You Wish For<br /><br>Chapter 44: Designing for Speed<br /><br>Chapter 45: Above Minimum<br /><br>Chapter 46: The Fundamental Physics<br /><br>Chapter 47: Common Knowledge<br /><br><br /><br>Part 5: Designing Time<br /><br>Chapter 48: Forecasting Overkill<br /><br>Chapter 49: An Origin Story for the High-Injury Network<br /><br>Chapter 50: It’s a Tradition<br /><br>Chapter 51: One-Way Conflicts<br /><br>Chapter 52: Inconvenient Evidence<br /><br>Chapter 53: Unclear Zones<br /><br>Chapter 54: The Fuzzy Math of Urban Freeways<br /><br><br /><br>Part 6: A Bird’s-Eye View<br /><br>Chapter 55: Not If You Leave Your Cul-de-Sac<br /><br>Chapter 56: What’s Your Function?<br /><br>Chapter 57: Bigger and Badder<br /><br>Chapter 58: Between Isn’t Through<br /><br>Chapter 59: One Shining Moment<br /><br>Chapter 60: Doing Our Jobs?<br /><br>Chapter 61: Ain’t That America<br /><br>Chapter 62: Well, That Didn’t Work<br /><br><br /><br>Part 7: OK Data, Don’t Mess This One Up<br /><br>Chapter 63: Statistically Significant Nonsense<br /><br>Chapter 64: Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story?<br /><br>Chapter 65: We Don’t Know What We’re Missing<br /><br>Chapter 66: Better Data, Better Insights<br /><br><br /><br>Part 8: The Blame Game<br /><br>Chapter 67: The Liability Boogeyman<br /><br>Chapter 68: The Guidelines Won’t Save Us<br /><br>Chapter 69: Hard to Say I’m Sorry<br /><br>Chapter 70: If Only<br /><br>Chapter 71: Safer Designs Please<br /><br><br /><br>Part 9: Standard Issue<br /><br>Chapter 72: The Pirates’ Code<br /><br>Chapter 73: Don’t Blame the Manuals<br /><br>Chapter 74: Level of Frickin’ Service<br /><br>Chapter 75: Unfinished LOS Business<br /><br>Chapter 76: Blind Faith in the Normal<br /><br><br /><br>Part 10: Safety Edumacation<br /><br>Chapter 77: An Empty Silo<br /><br>Chapter 78: Cultivating Engineering Judgment<br /><br>Chapter 79: Generalists Are Special<br /><br>Chapter 80: Transportation Is Made of People<br /><br><br /><br>Part 11: Spark Joy<br /><br>Chapter 81: I Declare Vision Zero!<br /><br>Chapter 82: Department of (Child) Transportation Services<br /><br>Chapter 83: Where the Sidewalk Begins<br /><br>Chapter 84: Another One Rides the Bus<br /><br>Chapter 85: Won’t You Be My Neighbor?<br /><br><br /><br>Part 12: What Matters and What Next?<br /><br>Chapter 86: Tell the Stories Behind the Numbers<br /><br>Chapter 87: Reengineer the Traffic Engineers<br /><br>Chapter 88: Keep Asking Why<br /><br><br /><br>About the Author<br /><br>Acknowledgments<br /><br>Endnotes</p><br>

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