The Village of Wellington is currently developing a Vision Zero Action Plan. This plan will guide policies and programs with the goal of eliminating traffic crashes that result in fatalities and severe injuries. Let’s learn more about what this means for residents.
I remember when automobile drivers and passengers could legally choose not to wear seat belts. Similarly, and almost unfathomably by today’s standards, automobile drivers were once able to consume alcohol while driving. Thankfully, legislators took away these choices. Additionally, in 2009, the law which makes it illegal to be unrestrained while riding in a car became a primary law. This means that you can be pulled over and issued a citation simply if you are not wearing your seatbelt. But the result — thousands of lives saved, and serious injuries prevented — has undoubtedly been worth giving up the dubious freedom to go beltless.
Better Vision
Today, as we see roadway fatalities rising and a disturbing 50-percent increase in pedestrian deaths during roughly the last decade nationwide, many transportation professionals are re-doubling their efforts using “Vision Zero,” an approach that has been successfully embraced in several states during the last two decades. This fundamentally new mindset envisions a transportation system in which most serious crashes are prevented. To achieve this, some of our cherished freedoms — especially the freedom to drive at maximum speeds — must be constrained.
First implemented in Sweden in the 1990s, Vision Zero has been adopted by the European Union with an intermediary target of a 50-percent reduction in deaths and serious injuries by 2030. Europe already has seen a 36-percent reduction in road deaths from 2010 to 2020.
Wellington’s Vision
The Village of Wellington is currently developing a Vision Zero Action Plan. This plan will guide policies and programs with the goal of eliminating traffic crashes that result in fatalities and severe injuries along Wellington’s roadways. The village’s Vision Zero initiative strives to improve safety for everyone traveling around the community, whether walking, cycling, driving, horseback riding or riding transit, and to improve the identified high-crash injury locations, all in an effort to prevent fatal and severe injury crashes. The Vision Zero Action Plan sets an ambitious long-term goal to eliminate traffic fatalities and serious injuries from occurring along Wellington’s roadways. Vision Zero programs prioritize safety over other transportation goals, acknowledge that traffic fatalities and serious injuries are preventable, and incorporate a multidisciplinary Safe System approach.
The core belief of Vision Zero is that fatal and severe injury crashes are unacceptable and preventable. This approach to safety brings together education, data-driven decision-making and community engagement with context-sensitive, people-centric street designs that account for human error, promote slower speeds and improve mobility for all users. With this Vision Zero approach, Wellington’s departments and residents work together to make village streets safer and meet the goal of zero deaths and serious injuries attributable to traffic crashes in Wellington by 2030.
The Wellington Village Council formally adopted Vision Zero, an ambitious commitment to eliminate traffic fatalities by 2030, through Resolution R2022-15 passed in July 2022 mandating a safe systems approach and equitable action plan aimed at saving lives on local roads.
What Is Vision Zero?
Vision Zero is an international effort to eliminate all fatal and serious injury traffic crashes. Adopted by dozens of communities across the United States, it is a heartfelt belief that these crashes are preventable, and that changed attitudes and approaches will enable success.
Vision Zero is based on five key principles: Traffic deaths and severe injuries are preventable; human life and health are prioritized within all aspects of transportation systems; human error is inevitable and transportation systems should be forgiving; safety work should focus on systems-level change above influencing individual behavior; and speed is recognized as the fundamental factor in crash severity. The program encourages communities to adopt policies and implement programs and procedures that can eliminate the potential for serious injury and fatal traffic-related crashes to occur. Wellington’s goal is to eliminate all of these crashes by 2030.
How Does This Relate To You?
As you think about your family, friends and acquaintances, is there anyone you would be accepting of being killed or seriously injured in a traffic crash? Would you miss them and mourn them? You would not tolerate a baby product to remain on the market if it injured children. You would demand tainted foods that made people sick be removed from grocery stores. You expect that the water you drink is free from contaminants. You have zero tolerance for these and similar things. Yet, in the United States, nearly 40,000 people are killed each year on our roadways. Florida has one of the highest rates of fatal traffic crashes of any state. So, why is this considered acceptable? Frankly, it is not, and we individually and collectively should make changes in our attitudes, expectations and approaches to achieve the goal of no one being killed or severely injured when traveling along, around and across our roadways.
The village’s Vision Zero Action Plan will guide policies and programs with the goal of eliminating fatalities on local roadways. The plan focuses on providing near-term recommendations to rapidly implement safety improvements and begin the systemic changes needed to fully realize Vision Zero. Many recommended engineering treatments, enforcement directives and educational programs can and will be rolled out quickly over the first year. But we also understand that fundamentally improving traffic safety and ending senseless tragedies will require a generational commitment to changing culture, infrastructure and mobility planning.
Input From The Public
The Vision Zero Action Plan requires public outreach as it aims to improve road safety and reduce traffic fatalities, and gathering feedback from the community can help ensure that the plan addresses their concerns and needs. Your input is essential for the success of Wellington’s Vision Zero Action Plan. You can provide us with your concerns regarding traffic and safety on the village’s roads at www.wellingtonvisionzero.com.
With sustained vision and dedication to protecting human life as the top priority, the village believes this ambitious goal of zero severe injuries and death due to preventable crashes can become a reality over the next decade. This action plan provides a comprehensive roadmap to get Wellington to zero. It will require a massive community education effort and also necessitate a paradigm shift in how local government and drivers think about safety — like what we’ve seen with seat belts.
