A European city banned cars from most of the city in 1999 and has not had a single road-related death in over a decade and approximately 15,000 people have moved to the area. And, in response to the growing climate crisis, air pollution has decreased by 67% and neighboring cities and countries are looking to adopt the practice, too.

A small North Carolina city replaced its bus system with on-demand minivans to better serve residents. In a collaborative effort with the company Via, which provided software, vehicles, and drivers in exchange for city funding, the service runs about 3,700 trips a week and covers 100% of the city, increasing accessibility for residents.

The city of Hoboken uses “Daylighting” – city planning prioritizing infrastructure changes to increase pedestrian and traffic safety, which has prevented traffic-related fatalities since 2018. Interventions include bike lanes, curb extensions, bus lanes, high-visibility crosswalks, and raised intersections.

In London, a new initiative called Junior Roadwatch is engaging children as traffic safety enforcers. Around one particularly busy and dangerous section of road, drivers who are caught speeding have two options: get a ticket or be questioned by a group of school-aged children. While newly developed, the initiative, devised by The Met Police and Transport for London, has stopped over 90 individuals for speeding, all of whom chose to answer questions from children about the consequences of their actions.

New York City's traffic safety campaign Vision Zero has made heavy use of cameras to enforce speeding and red-law laws, with an 85% drop in severe injuries at the 150 intersections with red-light cameras. But, after an increase in 2019 in traffic deaths, and armed with a study showing how vehicles with multiple camera-related violations were far more likely to be involved in injury accidents, the city has decided it needs a more effective accountability mechanism than fines; namely, seizing the cars of repeat violators who refuse to take a traffic-safety course.

A series of methodically planned and publicized measures to improve traffic safety have significantly lowered Lithuania's highway fatalities in what is now serving as a model for safety advocates in neighboring Poland. Starting nearly a decade ago, after traffic deaths peaked, Lithuania began increasing penalties for violations, toughening enforcement, and improving roadways. Each phase was accompanied by public education. More lenient laws and enforcement are blamed for Poland's relatively high traffic-death rate.

Oslo, Norway saw zero pedestrian and cyclist deaths in 2019. The success comes from infrastructure redesign, increased traffic enforcement, overall policy prioritization of road safety, and collaboration between residents, organizations, and government. In the United States, many cities are working toward “Vision Zero” – zero pedestrian and cycling deaths – and are looking to Oslo as an example.

The Vision Zero program many cities use to reduce traffic deaths depends on data to inform where to target safety measures like redesigned streets and speed limits. But, when significant numbers of crashes, particularly involving pedestrians and bicycles, go missing in the data, the interventions miss the problems. Racial disparities in unreported crashes or unresponsive police mean that the problems are compounded in under-served areas. Data improvements in D.C., San Francisco, and other cities aim to fill the gaps so that the benefits of Vision Zero can extend to places where they're needed most.

An extensive investigation that, despite implementing an initiative called "Vision Zero" that aims to eliminate traffic and pedestrian fatalities, many cities still struggle to reduce the number of fatalities, year-over-year. Now, cities like Chicago and Washington D.C. are analyzing their failures - from lack of budget planning to missing coordination between government departments - in order to get on track to eliminating traffic deaths within a decade.

In the Netherlands, city councils are piloting remarkable new technology to make roads safer and friendlier for cyclists and pedestrians through the use of apps that improve the efficiency and sensitivity of traffic lights to the elderly, disabled, and young children. Improved traffic flow is a key part of the way forward into a greener, safer urban future.

After an impassable road cut the community of Ayegbami off from business and cultural opportunities, a corps member with the National Youth Service Scheme chose to tackle the issue as his Community Development Service project. Through media advocacy and direct outreach to relevant officials, the community was able to get the government's attention and the road was reconstructed with a new bridge to control erosion, allowing the local economy to rebound.

Lowering speed limits and aggressive traffic enforcement by police patrols have not succeeded at erasing America's exceptionally high traffic death rate. The 1974-95 mandate for a national 55-mph limit coincided with a steep drop in highway deaths. But its repeal did not reverse the trend, with deaths hitting a 40-year low in 2014. Speed remains a factor in about a quarter of highway deaths, which remain high by world standards. Speed cameras and automated ticketing for violations have worked in their limited use, just as they have in broader use in Europe. But they remain politically unpopular in the U.S.

American cars made since the early 1980s have carried ratings from the federal New Car Assessment Program, showing how risky they are to human life in a crash. NCAP ratings motivated a host of safety enhancements by manufacturers. Since the 1990s, similar programs in the European Union, China, Australia, Korea, and Japan have also rated vehicles' risks to pedestrians and bicyclists, and their fatalities have dropped. Not so in the U.S., where industry resistance has stalled expansion of NCAP ratings. Advocates hope the Biden Transportation Department will finally expand the program.

Electric scooter companies across the United States brainstorm and pilot creative ideas to get their riders to focus more intently on scoot safety. One e-scooter company, Bird, has launched a pilot that asks riders to take a selfie with their helmet and parked scooter in exchange for future discounts and even free rides. To address the lack of hemet-wearing among riders, companies have also hosted helmet giveaways, online "safety marketplaces," and more.