Traffic (Violence) Circles
On The Alleged Origin of the Term "Traffic Violence"
Former Streetsblog writer Angie Schmitt’s 2020 book “Right of Way: Race, Class, and the Silent Epidemic of Pedestrian Deaths in America” was mentioned in Part I of the Is There Really an “Epidemic” of “Traffic Violence?” Series as a potential source for evidence behind the epidemic label used to describe traffic deaths but resulted in nothing short of a disappointment as the author seldom used the term in the book’s copy itself and failed to provide meaningful statistics to support the claim.
The ironic thing, is that Schmitt might actually be onto something in at least identifying part of an issue with abnormal pedestrian deaths. As for the causes and solutions her activism-driven journalism is laden with Woke identity politics, classist dislike against the working class motor vehicle drivers, and a profound misunderstanding of cycling safety to name a few. But had she done some of the math done in Part II, she would have a great starting point for a sensible argument in support of the “epidemic” label for pedestrian deaths at least in recent years.
Part I also discussed the preferred term used by Schmitt and other activists to describe traffic deaths/accidents/collisions which is “traffic violence.” Streetsblog themselves in a May 2021 article, “What is ‘Traffic Violence’ and Why Do We Need To Talk About It?” said:
“Since at least 2013, Streetsblog has been using the term “traffic violence” to describe the epidemic of death and serious injuries that has raged on our roadways since the advent of the automobile.”
The OG 2013 mentioning of the term “traffic violence” comes from Schmitt’s own article for Streetsblog, “Maryland Cops Show How Pedestrian Safety Enforcement Should Be Done,“ which is a bit ironic given that Streetsblog embraced the “Defund the Police1” Luxury Belief2 demanding virtually no involvement of law enforcement in enforcing laws on the nation’s public roads. Instead these activists believe roadway behavior can be fixed to the point of zero traffic deaths (Vision Zero) so long as The Anointed demonize “drivers” and radically redesign all the roads to magically make everybody behave as they’re supposed to.
The term “traffic violence” is mentioned only once in that article, almost casually as if readers already know what it means at the beginning of the article, and with no explanation of what it really meant.
But police in Montgomery County, Maryland, recently did pedestrian safety enforcement the right way: rather than target the victims of traffic violence, they targeted the only party capable of inflicting injury and death -- drivers.
The term did begin to grow over the years on the Streetsblog with Schmitt herself in December of that year issuing an article addressed to the Associated Press called, “It’s Time for the AP to Nix the Term “Accident” to Describe Car Collisions.”
Here, the AP were the targets because, as Schmitt noted, the AP produce a Stylebook used by not only one of the largest press syndicates in the world but also across the journalism profession3. Here, she was insisting on using the term “collision” in stead of “accident.” The term “traffic violence” is mentioned casually two times4.
But where does the term really come from?
As it turns out Right of Way: Race, Class, and the Silent Epidemic of Pedestrian Deaths in America has (sort of) a history into the use of the term “traffic violence,” in a chapter covers the history of the activist group Families for Safe Streets who as she says (and cites several times) use the term “traffic violence.” Here Schmitt diverges for a paragraph or two from the Families for Safe Streets saga to discuss the term itself “traffic violence” noting that MA Senator Elizabeth Warren tweeted in November 2019 using the term with the hashtag #EndTrafficViolence.
Schmitt finished with, “the term was so unheard of that after Warren Tweeted it, Seattle’s alternative weekly newspaper, The Stranger, wrote a whole article investigating the word.”
Sure enough, in the footnotes of her book, Schmitt’s source is The Stranger article, “Elizabeth Warren Wants to End "Traffic Violence"“ written by none other than
, the co-host of the podcast with .What exactly did Herzog find?
“It turns out, that the term "traffic violence" was not made up by whoever or whatever runs the candidate's Twitter,” Herzog wrote before diving into a history of the term.
Where did her research lead her to?
Schmitt herself along with another Streetsblog personality, Roger Rudick who is also fancy to using the term.
Herzog found Schmitt’s December 2023 call for the AP to change their terminology as mentioned above and published in Streetsblog. That’s the earliest source she could find of the use of the term.
So, in other words, Schmitt in her book references an article referencing her own work from over ten years ago.
In her book Schmitt also wrote, “Activists prefer the use of the term traffic violence over the euphemistic accident because it helps desensitize the issue for the public.” That is a completely accurate take but Schmitt left out the fact she was behind much of that push for the use of the term via her advocacy “journalism” at Streetsblog.
As it turns out, the term is far older than that, going back as far as the 1960s in the academic literature, which is a topic that will be researched in a future piece.
Changes to the AP Styleguide in the summer of 2020 resulted in journalists en-masse doing this, for example.
“While even NYC Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, notorious for turning a blind eye to traffic violence, issued a statement that "the term 'accident' has sometimes given the inaccurate impression or connotation that there is no fault or liability associated with a specific event," major press outlets like the New York Times and the Cleveland Plain Dealer still tend to use "accident" as the default term for car crashes, even in vehicular homicide cases.”
“Adding an entry in the Associated Press Style Guide that clearly positions "collision" as the preferred term, instead of "accident," would shape perceptions of traffic violence and, over time, make American streets safer.”