In part 1, I used a safe systems lens to understand traffic safety in Santa Monica after a fatal crash at the intersection of Wilshire and Chelsea in December, 2024. In that column I showed that traffic enforcement activities and fine revenues had declined in Santa Monica in recent years.
Department spokesperson Lt. Ericka Aklufi provided a comment at the end of part 1 that attributed the decline to staffing shortages in the department’s motorcycle unit that is primarily tasked with enforcing traffic laws. Officer recruitment and Santa Monica’s structural budget deficits mean that it is smart to consider safe streets infrastructure, best practices, and traffic enforcement alternatives that don’t rely on sworn police officers. And as this column demonstrates, there are many.
Increase funding for safe streets infrastructure
Recently-approved Measure K raises $6.7 million annually to “enhance public safety, create safe routes to school to protect children.” The City did not install flashing beacons at the Wilshire and Chelsea crosswalk during Phase 1 of the Wilshire Safety Study implementation because they planned to install a traffic signal at the intersection when more funding was available in a second phase. Transportation safety is riddled with examples where earlier investment in infrastructure could have saved a life or avoided a severe injury, and this preventable death adds another.
The city council should direct funding to street safety infrastructure, including the planned traffic signal at Wilshire and Chelsea and a future signal at Santa Monica and Chelsea to enable a planned bike route.
The appropriate street safety infrastructure varies based on location, but there are no shortage of design options. Santa Monica is an affiliate member of the National Association of City Transportation Officials which has published myriad design guidelines including the Urban Streets Design Guide, Transit Street Design Guide, Designing Streets for Kids, and Urban Bikeway Design Guide.
I asked some Santa Monica Forward members about some of the measures they’d like to see around Santa Monica, and they had no shortage of ideas:
| Category | Measures |
| Quick-build infrastructure | Crosswalk and alley daylighting, protected bike lanes, reduced curb radii, traffic diverters on neighborhood streets, |
| Permanent Infrastructure | Raised intersections/continuous sidewalks, roundabouts, speed tables, humps, or cushions |
| Traffic Control Devices | No right on red, Leading pedestrian intervals, automated walk phases (not requiring pushing button) |
| Curb Management | Loading zones citywide that accommodate increasing demand for pickup, drop off, and goods delivery. Lack of loading zone space means more large vehicles parking near crosswalks, creating intersection safety hazards. I plan to address this issue in a future column. |
Establish a Crash Analysis Studio
The Strong Towns network advocates for a sensible, people-centered, cost-effective approach to creating and managing city infrastructure. The organization guides cities in the creation of a Crash Analysis Studio, which treats every traffic crash not as an inevitability of life but as something to learn from in order to improve safety in the short term, by remediating dangerous conditions, and in the long term, by changing street designs and local practices.
The key prerequisite for establishing a studio is to establish a cross-functional crash response team, with representatives from police, fire, public works, traffic engineers, and people familiar with the crash location. This team visits the sites of severe crashes to understand the factors that may have contributed to a crash–such as missing signs, obstructed views, or roadway configuration. In a departure from the status quo of waiting years after a crash to implement changes at a site, the team then implements temporary, quick-build measures to improve safety at the site. The team monitors and adjusts these measures based on safety and efficiency needs. That way, when a more permanent reconfiguration of the crash site is funded, the city has already learned the optimal design through iterations that have made the street safer over time.
Advocate for smarter traffic enforcement
The organization Streets are for Everyone supports victims of traffic violence and their families and loved ones. Over the years, this group has developed a powerful advocacy arm that sponsors legislation to reduce street racing and dangerous driving in California. Due to this group’s advocacy, the legislature has passed two bills that will allow automated speed camera enforcement systems in neighboring Malibu, the City of Los Angeles, and 5 other cities throughout California.
The deployment of automated speed enforcement systems recognizes that many drivers who exceed the speed limit hour do not expect to be cited for that violation. Even when a police officer is dedicated to traffic enforcement in an area, they will cite fewer than 2 speeding drivers per hour, on average. By using technology that can issue citations to every vehicle exceeding the speed limit by 10 or more miles per, these systems increase the expected probability that a driver is cited for a violation while reducing the fine amount.
Santa Monica does not yet have the legal authority to implement an automated speed enforcement system but could advocate to be included in any future legislation to expand this authorization beyond the 7 pilot cities.
A legislative proposal, SB 720, would allow cities throughout California to implement automated camera enforcement systems at traffic lights to bring a similar expected probability to running red lights. The bill cites an Insurance Institute for Highway Safety statistic that in “2022, 1,149 people were killed in crashes that involved red light running.” Large cities with red light safety cameras saw a 21% reduction in fatal red light running crashes.
Alternatives to traffic stops can reinforce vehicle safety
Traffic stops can be dangerous for both police officers and drivers and there has been documented racial bias in searches resulting from traffic stops. Alternatives to traffic stops that improve traffic safety are an important option to consider.
The police, including non-sworn traffic services officers, can enforce several safety-related California Vehicle Code violations while vehicles are stationary and unattended.
Some of these are correctable violations, or fix-it tickets, that are dismissed once corrected. While the city receives a very small fee in cases where the registered owner corrects the violation, the main benefit from fix-it tickets is to increase compliance rates with these safety-related violations. Fixing a correctable violation requires an in-person visit to resolve, making time savings a greater deterrence than a $25 fine.
CVC 5204 requires the display of the current registration sticker on a license plate. A vehicle lacking a current sticker isn’t necessarily unregistered, but some of these vehicles may lack a valid registration CVC 4000(a)(1). California law gives vehicle owners a 2-month grace period to display this sticker after registration, but still requires that the vehicle be registered..
I’m often surprised to see so many vehicles without current registration stickers, given that the largest use of revenue from vehicle registration and driver’s license fees (about $3 billion annually) is to fund the California Highway Patrol, the state’s largest law enforcement agency by budget and number of officers.
Throwing citations at shady vehicles
Excessively dark window tinting can also pose a safety hazard for pedestrians, cyclists, and others outside of a vehicle. California’s Department of Motor Vehicles instructs drivers that a pedestrian making eye contact is ready to cross the street. The state’s Office of Traffic Safety advises pedestrians to “make eye contact with drivers – don’t assume the driver can see you.” Santa Monica’s Take the Friendly Road campaign encourages pedestrians to stop, look, wave before crossing a street and the city has emblazoned this phrase at some crossings. CVC 26708 requires that vehicles do not have tint beyond the top 4 inches of the front window and that the front side window tint must allow 70% of visible light transmission.
Violations are common. It’s hard to “stop, look, and wave” when you can’t see the driver. I took this picture of a parked car on the way to drop off my son at school. Documentation that will stand up in court requires the use of a calibrated tint meter on an open window. So, if the City Attorney’s office isn’t comfortable with the subjective nature of eyeballing vehicle tint violations, this inspection can be done when cars are queuing to exit a parking lot or structure.
Finish your plates
CVC 5200 requires display of the front and rear license plate, markings that are essential to solving crimes including hit-and-run collisions. This violation can be enforced while a vehicle is parked and vacant, making it one of the most visible and enforceable safety-related violations. The fine for failure to display a front plate is around $200. If the registered owner fixes the violation and demonstrates this to CHP, DMV, or some other agency, there is a dismissal fee of $25. The vehicle which struck the pedestrian at Wilshire and Chelsea in December 2024 did not have a front license plate. The suspect was arrested 5 days after the crash and there’s no indication that the lack of front license plate played a role in the crash or delayed the investigation.
However, if the suspect had been previously cited for this violation they may have assessed a higher probability of enforcement of traffic laws in Santa Monica and adjusted their driving behavior accordingly. And over a large enough number of incidents (42,514 people died on U. S. roads in 2022, including 7,522 pedestrians), these behavioral adjustments in response to traffic enforcement can save lives.
Place unutilized police vehicles in areas where excessive speeding is common
The last safety intervention that doesn’t require a sworn police officer does create the illusion of one. The Santa Monica Police Department has approximately 28 new police vehicles on the roof of the Civic Center Parking Structure. Once these new vehicles enter into service, the department can experiment with placing some decommissioned vehicles in locations where speeding and crashes are common. Placing one of these vehicles in a highly-visible location along the Pacific Coast Highway would likely deter at least some drivers from speeding.
