Speeding and recklessness earn Dallas ‘most dangerous city for driving’ title. Here’s how we stop it
Dallas is a dangerous place to drive on its best days – and that’s doubly true for cyclists and pedestrians who are unlucky enough to navigate anywhere near the path of our two-tonne rides.
Stir in an unprecedented pandemic and all too often the ruthless city streets feel completely out of control.
It’s not just the bored young people who have reinvented themselves as daredevils and drag racers – and have not yet loosened their grip on their Raceway du Jour.
The past 18 months have blinded young and old alike, believing we are the only car on the streets – and a little speedway practice is a good idea. All too often, when that bubble bursts, street rage breaks out.
If speeding and red light racing were an Olympic sport, Dallas would win gold.
Our city is generally at the top of the number of traffic fatalities with more than 14 deaths per 100,000 people per year. Compared to the national average, you are 46% more likely to be in a car accident on the streets of Dallas.
When an RV rental company merged National Highway Traffic Safety Administration information with other data earlier this year, Outdoorsy declared Dallas the most dangerous city in the US to drive
The stat that caught my attention the most came from WFAA-TV (Channel 8) reporter Rebecca Lopez, who reported last week that Dallas officials had penned 330 dangerous driving quotes and made five arrests since July 4th, as they double aggressive driving.
I pondered all that Sunday evenings as I stood on West Jefferson Boulevard north of Oak Cliff and watched one car after another rush by, some of them at twice the speed of 30 miles an hour.
Just blocks past the bustling business district that is home to El Ranchito and Charco Broiler, six-lane Jefferson Boulevard becomes flat and fast.
Social media posts described Armando Leija Esparza as an amazing man dedicated to his family and passionate about his job as a “court magician” who takes care of numerous landscaping clients. This makeshift memorial marked the site of the tragedy that led to his death on July 19th.(Lola Gomez / photographer)
The throttle is so tempting on this route that few drivers even noticed what I had seen west of Jefferson’s intersection with South Winnetka Avenue: a newly planted white cross, carefully labeled “RIP Armando Leija Esparza” and disguised in a rainbow made of artificial flowers and “we miss you” balloons.
The handcrafted memorial commemorates a 48-year-old father whose son watched helplessly last week as police said a car drifted off the road at 76 mph and hit Esparza while he was mowing a yard.
22-year-old driver Luis Saulo Ronzon Ramirez was charged with manslaughter in the July 19 afternoon tragedy last week.
Esparza and his son were at work in the back yard of a customer of Armando’s Landscaping when the mad Ramirez ran over a red light, hit a pickup truck and drove into the father, according to police.
Social media posts described Esparza as an amazing man dedicated to his family and passionate about his job as “the court magician” who looked after dozens of landscaping clients.
Several wrote about his son growing from boy to teenager as he helped out during school holidays each summer.
One man who identified himself as a friend wrote: “When I was around him, he treated me like I was special, and I am sure he was like that to anyone fortunate enough to spend time with him . ”
In the few minutes I spent at Esparza’s memorial on Sunday, two families paused for a moment of silence and prayer. One of the women kept asking: “How did that happen?”
Esparza’s death quickly renewed calls from residents of North Oak Cliff to make the city more aggressive in the fight against speeders.
It’s a scream that can be heard not just in this community, but in an entire city where so many streets are like drag strips. Jefferson and Hampton Road to the west, Forest Avenue and Midway Road to the north, Grand Avenue to the east and Great Trinity Forest Way to the south are just the beginning of a very long list.
The intersection of West Jefferson Boulevard and South Winnetka Avenue in Dallas on Saturday, just days after Armando Leija Esparza’s death, was nearby.(Lola Gomez / photographer)
Motorists on the road that runs along parts of the Santa Fe Trail in East Dallas have become so reckless that some of us are reluctant to use this trail.
Rudy Karimi, whose family lives near the path, told me that in the past few months he had seen speeders, mostly young adults with “ridiculous driving habits” who had hit trees and total vehicles in the past few months.
“Cars drive over the wooden bollards that snap like toothpicks when hit by something weighing 4,000 pounds,” he said. “It’s not safe for me when I’m walking my 10-month-old.”
One thing I miss over the years I’ve lived in Rockwall is that, as in any suburb with no major crime problems, consistent traffic surveillance was a given for my family. The Police Department’s priorities ensured that time was built into each officer’s day to patrol for violations.
This is hardly life in the big city, where patrol officers tend to have more than they can tell just to rush from one call to the next.
I’m not here to harass Dallas cops about another issue, but residents have the right to take action on potentially dangerous violations. The problem is not violating the law – problems with licenses, insurance, registration, inspection – but clear threats to public safety.
The Dallas Police Department advised me that they have their own traffic unit responsible for enforcement, accident investigations, DWI efforts, and vehicle crime.
The enforcement army, which operates six days a week, relies on four motorcycle squads made up of four sergeants and 22 officers.
You don’t have to be a math expert to calculate that reckless drivers outnumber cops.
“Even if we assigned every officer in the force to every speed racer, we would still have hundreds more violators across town,” said councilor Chad West, who represents the West Jefferson Boulevard area.
Too often the only means of calming traffic on the streets of Dallas are the potholes, as photographed on Richmond Avenue in East Dallas last month.(Ben Torres / special article)
Even before West took office, he was therefore interested in finding traffic-calming means in neighborhoods to protect pedestrians and cyclists. “The city has not made it a priority for decades,” he told me on Monday. “It’s time we changed that.”
The Jefferson Boulevard Task Force has worked for months bringing local residents together and working out details for a lane reduction experiment due to go into effect in mid-August.
West also wants to bring another pilot project – miniature traffic islands – to 10 to 20 inner neighborhood streets. These are not full-fledged roundabouts, but they are big enough that drivers slow down on the road and have to change course.
West’s District 1 office is working to secure funding and find a fair process to ensure that all interested residential areas apply, including those without formal neighborhood associations.
“If the neighbors like it, we might put money into the next bond to make it permanent,” West said.
Arterial roads, connections and inner neighborhood streets each require different and carefully researched solutions. Even if you find the best way forward, a solution here can create a new problem – as residents learned during last year’s lane reduction efforts on Hampton Road.
“They’re making changes to a major road and drivers are starting to drive through the neighborhoods,” West said.
Because of this, such changes need to be neighborhood focused and carefully investigated – even if voters demand immediate action.
It is neither sensible to blow up the entire road network, nor can we police ourselves out of autoidiotism. But City Hall owes it to taxpayers to relentlessly report dangerous crimes and put in place an infrastructure that makes the streets quieter.
“Deadliest Cities For Drivers” is one of the top 10 lists that Dallas needs to get out of as soon as possible.
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