Category Archives: Blog

One summer a few years ago, I was biking home from the pool. My roommate and I were throwing a housewarming party that night, and I had gone for a swim before coming home to help set up. About halfway home, I was stopped at an intersection when the light changed to green. I started to pedal across when a driver turned into me.

I felt a bump on my leg and then landed face first into the pavement. My glasses shattered on impact. The next thing I remember, I was sitting on the curb a few feet away while the driver kept saying “I’m so, so sorry.” Someone looked at my face and told me I would probably need stitches. Apparently I was covered with blood.

When I got to the emergency room, I learned that despite all the bleeding, the gash on my forehead was relatively minor. The doctor chatted with me while stitching up my eyebrow, and told me that I was pretty fortunate.

A few hours later, my roommate came and picked me up. I arrived at our housewarming party two hours late with 8 stitches in my eyebrow and wearing a blood-soaked t-shirt. To be honest, I felt more than a little badass.

It wasn’t until a little later that I realized just how lucky I’d been. The driver who hit me was going about 10 or 15 miles an hour, as he was coming from a full stop and making a left turn. That was fast enough to knock me off my bike, but not fast enough to do any real damage.

A few weeks later, I bumped into an acquaintance at a friend’s house who had also just been hit by a car. Like me, he had no health insurance at the time, but unlike me his injuries were much, much worse. He had been in a hit-and-run, and the truck that ran him over had dragged him for a full block. His leg was broken in multiple places, his opposite arm had a few pins in it, and there were all kinds of other injuries he’d sustained. On top of all this, because the driver who hit him never stopped, he was on the hook for hundreds of thousands of dollars in hospital bills.

After our conversation, I no longer felt quite so badass. More than anything else, I felt scared. Had the driver who hit me been going any faster than he was, I could have been very seriously injured, or killed. Honestly, my experience was the best-case scenario for a cyclist or pedestrian getting hit by a car, and it still really sucked. When I realized this, I pretty much stopped riding my bike, and sold it soon afterwards.

This is why I feel so strongly that any effort to make Austin’s roads safer has to start with the speed cars travel when they’re sharing streets with cyclists and pedestrians. If a driver is going 20 mph, an unexpected collision with a pedestrian might result in injuries. At 40, it’s pretty much guaranteed that someone is going to die, and it will not be the driver. I can only imagine how fast the car that hit my friend had to be going that they could hit a cyclist, drag him for a block, and not even notice that something was off.

Austin has far too many streets where drivers are interacting with pedestrians and cyclists at 40 mph or faster. Austin also has far too many places that are totally inaccessible except by one of those streets. If we want to make this city a safer, more enjoyable place to live, we absolutely have to start with speed, and the road conditions which encourage it.

by Mary Pustejovsky

When I was 15 years old, I was friends with a wonderful group of guys who I knew through musical theater. Frank Fry and Brian King were stars of our performance of Guys and Dolls. They were delightful to work with and were like big brothers to me. After the show was over, Frank, Brian, and two other guys were driving down the highway to go to Disneyland for Frank’s birthday. Jeff, the driver, was tired and nodded off. The rumble strips woke him up and he swerved back onto the road. He over-corrected and drove into oncoming traffic at very high speeds. Jeff and the other passenger up front survived but Frank and Brian did not.

Two years later my childhood friend’s father was killed in a car crash. And in 2005, my cousin Michael (19 years old) was killed in a car crash as well.

I don’t know how to say this any other way, but losing someone you love in a car crash is devastating. I don’t want anyone to have this experience this, ever. I have two children now, and it has made me even more passionate about this cause. I love my children dearly and I can’t imagine losing them, or them losing me and growing up without a mother.

Vision Zero is an approach that recognizes that people make mistakes, but those mistakes need not be fatal. In Frank and Brian’s case, there is no doubt that Jeff should not have been driving while he was so tired. But there was also no median other than a short distance separating opposite lanes of high speed traffic from each other. Had there been one, there’s at least a chance they’d all still be alive today.

This is an excellent example where we can recognize that people are not perfect. Although self-driving cars which remove human error are on their way, we need solutions to the death on our roads NOW. That means better road design to encourage better behaviors, such as narrowing lanes where appropriate, or putting medians between high speed traffic to prevent collisions. It also means better enforcement and education around driving while tired, driving while intoxicated, or driving while texting. Vision Zero advocates a holistic approach, recognizing that no single “fix” is going to prevent all deaths on our roads.

No one should have to deal with so much death at a young age, or any age. If you agree, join our movement now.

Vision Zero wants to end traffic deaths on Austin streets.  Traffic crashes and the suffering they cause are preventable.  Making a dangerous choice while in traffic causes most deaths.  Texting, driving drunk, speeding, jay-walking are examples of poor choices.

In Austin as of October 13th, 82 people have died from auto crashes.  25 have been pedestrians, 12 have been motorcyclists, 1 was a bicyclist, and 44 have been motorists.  Impaired driving has been a factor in approximately 53% of crashes. We can have a year with no traffic deaths, no pedestrian’s deaths, no motorcycle or bicycle deaths and no deaths from an auto crash.

Every death is someone’s neighbor, co-worker, school-mate or family-member.  Every death touches dozen of lives.  Zero traffic deaths starts with each of us keeping ourselves alive every time we enter traffic, then keeping our family members alive, our co-workers and neighbors alive as they travel Austin streets.  

We each participate in Vision Zero by slowing down, keeping our eyes on the road, being present and sober when behind the wheel.  Together we will save lives.

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Reaching Vision Zero and no traffic deaths in Austin is possible, but it takes everyone staying focused on the goal, every day.  Today, here are 7 ways you can make Vision Zero possible:

1.    Drive today without touching your cell phone.
2.    Wear a helmet, today.
3.    Today, look both ways (twice) before stepping into the roadway.
4.    Leave 10 minutes early today and drive the speed limit.
5.    Bring along a designated driver tonight – one who will consume NO alcohol.
6.    Call a cab tonight for the person who is intoxicated.
7.    Today, stop at every red light as you bicycle to school or work.

No one wants a knock on the door at 3 am.