According to data provided by the city, the number of serious crashes in Santa Monica rose a staggering 54% in 2024 to 60 Fatal and Severe crashes compared to 39 crashes the previous year. 2024 was the fourth consecutive year that saw an increase in serious crashes.
As much as people might want to blame the rise in crashes to a rise in activity as the city continues to recover from the pandemic, the 60 crashes in 2024 is also much higher than the number of crashes in the last year before the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2019, there were 43 such crashes.
Councilmember Jesse Zwick has been raising alarm bells about the increase in crashes for the past two years. Zwick identified the need for the city to increase funding for bicycle and pedestrian safety issues last year. However, rather than increase funding for these projects, the city council chose to increase funding to the police, leaving it up to voters to restore funding through a new parking tax (which thanks to political concessions to get the measure on the ballot split the money between transportation safety and police funding.)
“For too long this City has focused on ‘education’ with safe driving campaigns like ‘Take the Friendly Road,’ to little effect,” wrote Councilmember Dan Hall in an email to Next. “ We’re finally beginning to invest in proper engineering like our new protected bike lanes and crosswalk improvements by our schools.”
SMPD Chief Ramon Batista has claimed that the department doesn’t have enough staff to effectively enforce traffic laws at pre-pandemic levels, but the rising number of unsafe and fatal crashes has the Council asking hard questions.
In a recent piece at Santa Monica Next that outlined his concerns with the city’s traffic enforcement, Juan Matute noted that the number of traffic stops per day completed by the police has cratered to less than 9 stops per day.
Those numbers don’t sit well with the City Council. Zwick and Hall authored a motion at the January 28 City Council meeting that pushes the SMPD to do more enforcement, both routine and “higher profile” that can serve as a public warning not to drive unsafely on Santa Monica’s streets. The motion passed unanimously.
In particular, the motion requires that SMPD:
1) prioritize a greater number of high-visibility enforcement operations against dangerous driving,
2) provide data reporting to City Council and the public on an ongoing quarterly basis detailing the monthly total number of Traffic/Vehicle Stops and enforcement actions, including subtotals for each moving violation, as well as a comprehensive breakdown of data and trends in city traffic enforcement from 2019 through 2024 as part of the department’s annual report to City Council, and
3) develop a proposal as part of the 25/26 budget process to restore the department’s traffic enforcement capabilities and outcomes to pre-2020 levels.
“Enforcement is the next piece of the equation we need to get right,” Hall continued.
The city has also been trying to get the state to loosen restrictions on red-light cameras. Last year, legislation by Senator Ben Allen added the City of Malibu to the state’s “red light camera pilot program.” An early version of the bill also included Santa Monica and West Hollywood, but they were removed from the legislation at a hearing of the Senate Transportation Committee.
