In California, drivers run red lights daily, putting themselves and others at risk. It is a significant factor in severe injuries and traffic fatalities in California.

According to data from UC Berkeley’s Transportation Injury Mapping System (TIMS), in 2023 alone, there were 167 fatalities and nearly 1000 people suffered serious injuries due to red light running and traffic light violations.

While these numbers show a slight decrease from previous years, which saw 228 fatalities and more than 1000 serious injuries. These numbers highlight an ongoing road safety issue that not only affects drivers but also disproportionately affects vulnerable groups such as pedestrians, cyclists, and even children.

Therefore, a change needs to be made because of this urgent issue.

Thanks to everyone’s support, SAFE has expanded its legislative work to make roads safer for pedestrians, cyclists, and drivers and to advocate for more transit-friendly cities.

The heart of this work is a team of 5 staff and interns working hard to make this happen.

The team is led by Kristen Weiss, SAFE’s Policy and Legislation Coordinator. 

With the new California Legislative term beginning last month, this team has been working on more bills than in any previous year. SAFE is co-sponsoring, supporting, opposing, or requesting amendments on 40 bills and watching another 10. This breaks down to: 

• Co-sponsoring four bills

• Supporting 27 bills

• Requesting amendments to six bills

• Opposing three bills

In April 2022, 77-year-old Andrew Jelmert was cycling on Crystal Springs Drive in Griffith Park, training for what would have been his fifth AIDS Lifecycle Ride, when he was hit and killed by a driver doing 80+ MPH through Griffith Park.

His death underscored what park users had been saying for decades, that Griffith Park is a dangerous and high-speed cut-through for drivers, not the safe space that it should be for Angelenos.

The calls by cyclists and community members to SAFE for help after this tragedy were immediate and many. So SAFE’s team and volunteer advocates mobilized, holding vigils, press events, speaking at meetings, and working with a broader group of organizations like Streets For All, Bike LA, LA Walks, Active SGV, Los Feliz Neighborhood Council, and many more. 

Metro has launched its pilot Bus Lane Enforcement Program (BLE), a partnership with LADOT that uses on-bus cameras to issue tickets to cars obstructing priority bus lanes. 

The BLE is part of Metro’s NextGen Bus Plan, which aims to reimagine the city’s bus service to “focus on providing fast, frequent, reliable and accessible service.” And though the NextGen program has installed more than 40 miles of Bus Priority lanes, those lanes don’t work as intended when obstructed.

Since 2017, electric bicycle sales have risen tenfold in the United States, representing a noticeable shift in how many Americans—particularly those in denser urban environments like Los Angeles—get around. The move to e-bikes has been primarily positive: They increase mobility options, alleviate traffic congestion, enhance public health, and reduce carbon emissions.

But innovation has outpaced regulation — as anyone who’s been shaken by a passing motorized electric motorcycle, which looks like an e-bike doing 30+ mph down Ballona Creek Trail can attest.

As e-bikes continue to roll off the shelves, how can we cultivate this growing alternative to driving while ensuring it’s as safe as possible? 

Let’s Clean LA launched with more than 50 generous community members who joined SAFE to clear nearly two tons of trash from Los Angeles streets. Check out what we accomplished at clean-ups in Wilmington, Balboa Park, Lincoln Heights, and Venice Blvd!

Together, 55 of us cleared 3,515 pounds of trash — nearly two tons of waste, leaves, and junk strewn across our streets is now gone!

Since the Eaton and Palisades fires started Jan. 7, I, like many Angelenos, have become vigilant about checking the air quality. The morning after the fire, I took a screenshot of the air quality in Jefferson Park, where I live, that I’ve revisited a few times since.

The sentence “Air Quality Index is 415, which is worse than yesterday at about this time” never fails to elicit a rueful chuckle.

Resources and support 📋 | Help us with the clean up! 🧹

I hope this finds you and your loved ones safe during this incredibly challenging time.

As wildfires continue to devastate parts of Los Angeles, I wanted to take a moment to reach out and share a message of solidarity.

First and foremost, all SAFE staff are safe and accounted for. However, some of our friends, family members, staff, and partners have lost their homes or have been displaced by these fires.

We are doing everything we can to assist them and others in our community who have been affected.

If you or someone you know needs help—whether it’s accessing resources or finding community support—please reach out.

The beginning of a new year always offers a chance to reflect on the year that just passed, and at SAFE, we wanted to use our first email of 2025 to share some photos, memories, and accomplishments from a fantastic 2024!

Last summer, at CicLAvia: Meet the Hollywoods, the new 2.1 mile stretch of protected bike lanes on Hollywood Boulevard got their close-up.

But once the cameras departed and the streets reopened to car traffic, the dirty work of keeping the Hollywood Boulevard bike lanes truly began.

The City of Los Angeles added 22.5 lane-miles of new or improved bike facilities in Fiscal Year 2023-2024, according to Joe Linton’s annual analysis at Streetsblog L.A, the lowest number in five years. With such a paltry number of bike lane miles added this year, you’d hope it would be at least manageable to keep LA’s protected bike lanes clean. 

After years of delays, setbacks, and a general lack of transparency, the California Air Resources Board will launch its e-bike incentive program next week.

The first e-bike incentive application window opens on December 18th at 6 p.m. PST.

The California E-Bike Incentive Project “provides up to $2,000 of point-of-sale incentives to support the purchase of a new electric bicycle”

On a beautiful sunny Sunday in downtown Los Angeles, a coalition of organizers, advocates, and neighbors convened to mark World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims. Volunteers arrived early to create a memorial garden, complete with a colorful chalk mural that read “Save Lives.” The garden comprised 746 plants — one for each person who was killed by a car in Los Angeles County last year.

Around 20 family members gathered on Nov. 16, the day before World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims, at MoDa Studios in Venice for SAFE’s first-ever “Sip and Sculpt” — an opportunity for families who’ve been affected by traffic violence to connect over tea, baked goods, and artistic expression.

Art therapy has been shown to be a useful tool for those who’ve suffered traumatic events, like losing loved ones to traffic violence, because it is a nonverbal, creative way to externalize experiences that can be hard to process.

Late on the evening of Oct. 27, 42-year-old Oscar Guardado was killed in a hit-and-run while riding his bike in the West Adams neighborhood of LA, according to the GoFundMe page set up by his daughter, Angeles.

Oscar was the 20th bicyclist killed by a driver in Los Angeles so far this year, though, as Biking in LA points out, there remains little information about the incident.

LA Metro has officially opened the new Aviation/Century Station, which has connected the C and K lines and reconfigured both trains’ routes. 

The new station marks a major milestone in Metro’s transit expansion, according to the agency. The station, which is located at 5601 W. Century Blvd., not only connects Metro’s C and K lines but also “serves as a crucial link on the way to the upcoming LAX/Metro Transit Center.” 

Aviation/Century is the eighth station on the K Line and is the new endpoint for the C Line, which now runs between Norwalk and Aviation/Century.

Nearly 900 walkers, runners, cyclists, supporters and, of course, dogs gathered Sunday for the seventh annual Finish the Ride and Finish the Run Santa Clarita, starting and finishing at West Creek Park in Santa Clarita.

The Halloween theme and the creative costumes belied a serious shared message from everyone in attendance: we must make the streets of Southern California — and the country, and the world — safe for everyone.

Next month, communities across the world will honor those who’ve lost their lives or been affected by traffic violence on the World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims.

Sadly, the list of road traffic victims in LA will be longer this year than last — already the deadliest traffic year on record.

Read on to dig into the numbers and find out what we can do to force Mayor Bass to prioritize ending traffic violence.

The 9th annual Streets, Art, SAFE film competition and the inaugural poster competition is in full swing! These competitions empower student artists to learn about the crisis of traffic violence - the leading cause of death for US teens - and create original art to inspire California to do better. We’ve got some exciting new additions to this year’s initiative, so read on to learn more! 

When we last checked on the state of safe streets up in Sacramento, nine different bills that SAFE had been working on (supporting or opposing) this legislative session were awaiting Governor Newsom’s signature.

We now have answers on all nine, and we’re happy to announce some wins and disappointed to report some losses.

Earlier this month, safe streets advocates received a rare piece of good news: the National Highway Highway Traffic Safety Administration, for the first time, will require automakers to test their cars’ safety for pedestrians, not simply drivers and passengers. 

The proposal is not radical: it would require automakers to conduct “hood-to-head” safety tests to ensure cars are being designed to limit pedestrian deaths in the US, which have risen by more than 50% in the past nine years to levels not seen since 1981.