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b"Thanks to technology, cars and roads just keep getting safer, right? That\\u2019s the message we hear in the news and advertising on a regular basis. But if that were the case, traffic fatalities should be going down as technology progresses. And they\\u2019re not.\\nWhat\\u2019s more, according to these standard beliefs subscribed to by much of the public, when driving dramatically decreased during the early months of the pandemic in 2020, we should have seen a drop in traffic deaths, too. Instead, we saw an increase. Beth Osborne, director of Transportation for America, calls this \\u201cone of the most dangerous assumptions we have made in the United States\\u201d\\u2014that deaths as a result of car crashes are just \\u201cthe cost of doing business\\u201d and will naturally go up or down in correlation with the amount of traffic.\\nThe truth is that the design of our streets is fundamentally dangerous and fewer cars on the road actually means people will drive more quickly, taking more risks, and leading to more crashes. This is because engineers have built American streets to highway standards, removing all potential obstacles and widening streets to the point of absurdity.\\xa0Car crashes aren\\u2019t the result of mere human error or recklessness, they\\u2019re the result of design.\\xa0\\nThat\\u2019s why Osborne\\u2019s on the Strong Towns Podcast this week, to talk about Transportation for America\\u2019s new Dangerous by Design report and to encourage you not to look away or shrug your shoulders about the \\u201ccost of doing business\\u201d in America.\\nAccording to Transportation for America\\u2019s new report, 18 people a day were struck and killed in 2020. In any other context\\u2014terrorist attack, plane crash, mass shooting\\u2014these numbers would be horrific. We should take them seriously on our streets, too.\\nThe good news is that, if design got us into this mess, design can get us out, too. In this conversation, Osborne and Marohn dig into the issues with street design in America and how we can move toward safer, more financially productive streets everywhere.\\nAdditional Show Notes\\n\\n\\u201cBeth Osborne: America's Roads are \\u2018Dangerous by Design\\u2019,\\u201d a previous Strong Towns Podcast episode featuring Beth Osborne.\\n\\n\\n\\u201cInfrastructure Avalanche: How to Make the Best Use of Federal and State Funding,\\u201d a 2022 Local-Motive course featuring Beth Osborne.\\n\\n\\n\\u201cHow Street Design Shapes the Epidemic of Preventable Pedestrian Fatalities,\\u201d by Steve Davis, Strong Towns (July 2022).\\n\\n\\n\\u201cNew Report: America\\u2019s Epidemic of Traffic Deaths Is Getting Worse,\\u201d by Daniel Herriges, Strong Towns (July 2022).\\n\\n\\nTransportation for America website.\\n\\n\\nDangerous by Design 2022 report.\\n\\n\\nBeth Osborne (Twitter).\\n\\n\\nCharles Marohn (Twitter)."