For some Southern California communities, street racing, street takeovers, and individuals doing donuts and burnouts are regular annoyances. For some communities, it’s resulted in people killed or severely injured. Over the years, Streets Are For Everyone has been working to address this on many fronts – working with victims, advocates, and electeds to change laws, improve infrastructure, educate, and enforce the law. For the last ten months, SAFE has also been working with Supervisor Holly Mitchell's office, Street Racing Kills, and other LA County departments to put together a community conference to look at strategies to help end illegal street racing and street takeovers.

TODAY, Senate Bill 1509 (Stern) passed through the full California Senate with a 27 to 1 vote and now advances to the Assembly.

What is SB 1509?

In 2020, 1,228 people died in California from speed-related collisions, and in 2021, the number increased, with 1509 Californians losing their lives due to speeding. SB 1509 aims to increase accountability for drivers by increasing the number of violation points associated with driving 26 mph above the speed limit to two violation points.

The new California Legislative term began this past February, and numerous transportation safety bills were introduced. SAFE focuses on the most important of these bills—supporting, requesting amendments, or opposing them. Here are the bills Streets Are For Everyone will support in 2024.

Here we are again, about to host our 11th Annual Finish The Ride and Finish The Run Griffith Park. It’s hard to believe we’ve been doing this now for 11 years. It’s incredible how much it’s grown in that time.

Many of you know the basic history of Finish the Ride, how I was hit cycling in Griffith Park in 2013, dragged nearly a quarter mile under a car onto and down the 5 Freeway. How it was a hit-and-run, and I lost my leg and nearly my life. How Finish The Ride started as an advocacy campaign on hit-and-run crimes to help make roads safer for everyone. For those who have been at a Finish The Ride event, you’ve heard me describe the story, and I’ve described the story every year since the first year. I’ve told the simple story so many times I can almost say it in my sleep (check with my wife, I likely do!)

Most of you don’t know that Finish The Ride, the deep roots of Finish The Ride, actually goes back to 1-2 days after I was hit. I was in intensive care at LAC+USC Hospital (now LA County General Hospital), and I was waking up from my first emergency surgery, where the doctors officially amputated what was left of my right leg.

On Saturday, February 24th, Streets Are For Everyone (SAFE) was honored to participate in District 2 Governing Board Supervisor Holly Mitchell’s first interactive community workshop on ways to stop illegal street racing and takeovers. Over 130 SD2 community members attended the event, which took place at the beautiful Magic Johnson Community Center in South LA.

Why Los Angeles Gets an “F” Grade for 2023

I am starting this report with a question that anyone reading this must think about:

How many more Angelenos need to die before we, as a collective city, start treating traffic violence with the urgency it deserves?

On December 31st, Streets Are For Everyone (SAFE) placed a ghost tire for Trina Newman-Townsend, who tragically lost her life on December 24th, 2022, when a driver hit her as she was getting into her car on Broadway Ave at 88th Street.

Authored by Glendale Assemblymember Laura Friedman, this bill creates a new pilot program in Los Angeles, San Jose, San Francisco, Long Beach, Oakland, and Glendale. It allows those cities to install speed camera systems in school zones, high-injury streets, and areas with a history of street racing.

When it comes to street safety, it’s important to think about the language we use. Instead of using the term “accident,” let's refer to them as preventable crashes. The term "accident" suggests things happened by chance, and nobody is to blame. But by referring to them as "crashes," we can understand the importance of human actions, infrastructure, and policies in road safety and saving lives.

The residents surrounding Marion Park have been terrorized by street racing for more than 20 years, a fire stoked by the release of the first Fast and Furious film. On May 19th, Fast and Furious X was released, and Marion Park was ready ….

In addition to other challenges, our schools are facing a public health crisis because of speeding, and it is only getting worse. Children and teens are dying, and they will keep dying unless change happens. While writing this report, yet another tragedy occurred near our SAFE office. On April 25th, 2023, 33-year-old Ghadah Abduljabbar, and her 6-year-old daughter were struck by a speeding vehicle in Hancock Park, a community of Los Angeles, CA. The mother was pronounced dead at the scene, and the daughter, a six-year-old, was severely injured but survived. The pair were hit while walking across a crosswalk near Hancock Park Elementary School, where the child attends the first grade. We cannot ignore speeding. Measures must be taken to mitigate speeding and keep our children safe.

On Saturday, January 21, 2023, hundreds of community members – kids, parents, cyclists, pedestrians, elected officials, and dogs (don’t forget the dogs) – came together at LA City Hall for a massive die-in protest for safer streets in Los Angeles. 312 lives were lost in 2022 due to traffic violence, and thousands more were seriously injured – the highest on record in over 20 years.

For the last several years, the holidays in Los Angeles have served as a grim reminder that the streets of this otherwise world-class city are fast and deadly. As Streets Are For Everyone (known as SAFE) rang in the new year, we learned that 2022 was no exception.