BikinginLA

I’m done.

I’m fucking done with traffic violence, and the way it rips innocent people out of our world and out of our lives, and the lives of their loved ones.

I’m done with people getting killed and maimed because they chose to ride a bicycle or walk across the street. I’m done with lives torn apart because someone made an innocent mistake, or pushed their luck a little too far.

I’m done with people dying or surviving with lifelong physical and/or emotional injuries because they unknowingly shared to road with the wrong person at the wrong time operating a multi-ton steel and glass weapon of mass destruction.

I am so done with all of it.

I just wish I could say I was done writing about it. Because there was another one last week, and another on Tuesday; a grandfather and a brother.

And there will be another one tomorrow, or next week, or the week after that.

And the bodies will keep piling up, one upon another upon another upon another, until we all yell “Enough!”

¡Basta!

Our most basic form of transportation is an abject fucking failure. Because what else cab you call a system that demands 38,000, 39,000, 40,000 or more human lives every year as tribute, just to get us all from here to there.

Enough already!

It doesn’t matter whether you do everything right, or everything wrong. Fuck up badly enough in the right place, at the right time, and you can walk away. Do everything right, follow every law, dress up like a neon clown and light up your bike and person like a Christmas tree, and you can still lose your life to a drunk, a stoner, a distracted driver texting with their thumbs while they try to grip the wheel.

Wear a helmet, or don’t. It might protect your skull if you fall off your bike. But it doesn’t do a damn thing to protect your midsection or keep your limbs attached.

Drivers seem to think it’s some sort of magic talisman to ward off injury and evil sprits, equivalent to a seat belt or an airbag, encased in a steel frame. Yet it’s only designed to protect against impacts at a whopping 12.5 mph.

But that’s more protection than pedestrians get. They get a couple of parallel white stripes drivers are supposed to stop for, but usually don’t. Or a curb that’s somehow supposed to halt a four-wheeled ballistic missile from slamming into an outdoor diner or a daycare.

Forty-fucking-thousand people every year, give or take. That’s a small city. And that’s just in the US.

Add in all the other people killed in traffic violence in all the other countries in the world, and you’re up to nearly 1.2 million lives lost. That’s like a WMD somehow wiped Dallas, Texas off the face of the earth.

Between 20 million and 50 million more people survive their injuries every years. Some recover in a few days, or a few weeks. Some never do.

Is this really the best we can do?

I’m done.

I’m done with all of it, all the deaths, all the injuries, all the shattered lives and families. All the traffic violence.

I want to scream it from the rooftops, shout it from the middle of Wilshire Blvd. I want to stop every fucking car until we fix this system of death and destruction.

I was in a jury pool several years back, and the defense lawyer asked who among the 20 or so people had been in a crash. Every hand went up. Then he asked how many people in the jury pool had lost a friend or loved one in a collision. Every hand but one stayed up.

I’ve been lucky. I’ve only lost two people close to me.

And somehow managed not to lose my own life through decades of walking, biking and driving. How, I don’t know, because I’ve come so close to disaster so many times, but always manage to walk away relatively unscathed, whether through luck or providence.

I used to say skill, but I don’t believe in that anymore. Because I read, and yes, write, about so many highly skilled people who didn’t.

I’m not done. But I’m done.

I want to keep screaming, keep yelling, keep ranting and raving enough! No more, forever!

But for one of the few times in my life, I have literally run out of words.

Which, I suppose, leads to my next subject. Because in a similar fit of anger and depression and inspiration the other day, I designed a few new t-shirts like the one above, and those below.

Buy one, or don’t.

I hope you’re as angry as I am, and want to yell it to the world. But that’s not the point.

The point is, I had to get it off — and in this case, literally on — my chest.

But more importantly, just fucking stay safe out there.

………

On a related subject, it’s time to storm City Hall on Tuesday, and join Streets Are For Everyone in demanding that the city declare a State of Emergency on Traffic Violence.

Below is an email I received from SAFE yesterday.

The time has come to demand a State of Emergency on Traffic Violence from our local leaders.

SAFE will join our coalition partners at Los Angeles City Council on September 15th to drop our open letter demanding that the Mayor and the Los Angeles City Council immediately declare a State of Emergency on Traffic Violence and address this public health crisis.

Thank you for signing on and joining this movement. Your signature helped us reach more than 1,250 signatures on this campaign, showing our local leaders that Angelenos want streets that are safe to use.

The next step is here, and we need you with us as we deliver that message directly to City Hall.

Please join SAFE on September 15th at 9:30 am in City Hall to help us deliver our open letter and make our voices heard. We are asking everyone who has signed this letter to attend the City Council meeting and give public comment.

Our goal is to have at least 50 people give public comment, making it clear to our local leaders that traffic violence is an urgent public safety crisis that deserves their attention.

Event Details

• Date: Tuesday, September 15th, 2026
• Time: Meet at 9:30 a.m.
• Council Meeting Begins at 10:00 a.m.
• Press Conference following Public Comment
• Location: 200 N. Spring St., Los Angeles, CA 90012 (Entrance on Main St.)

Instructions and Talking Points for Public Comment.

After public comment concludes, advocates will leave the Council Chamber and regroup outside on the steps of City Hall for a Press Conference.

Thank you again for adding your name to this campaign and standing with us. We have built the movement. Now it is time to bring it directly to our local leaders.

If you have any questions, please reach out to me via email (aaron@streetsareforeveryone.org) or by calling my cell (818.697.2621)

We hope to see you at City Hall on September 15th.

There’s still time to sign the petition if you haven’t yet.

………

If you’re still with me — and I don’t know why you would be after all that — l’shanah tovah, and may we never forget the lives lost on the 25th anniversary of this day.

I’ll see you on Monday. And hopefully I’ll have my shit together by then.