Dozens 'die' at L.A. City Hall to protest 290 traffic-related deaths in the city in 2025
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On Saturday morning — a day after hundreds gathered in downtown Los Angeles to protest recent nationwide immigration enforcement — another protest gained momentum.Even if almost everyone in attendance lay on the ground stock-still.Road safety advocates and others, led by the group Streets Are for Everyone (SAFE), gathered on the steps of Los Angeles City Hall for a “die-in” demonstration.
The event was partly in remembrance of the 290 individuals who, according to the LAPD’s current tally, died last calendar year in traffic incidents in Los Angeles.And it was partly a vociferous call for safer streets throughout the city.
World & Nation Federal immigration officers shot and killed a man Saturday in Minneapolis, drawing hundreds of protesters in a city already shaken by another fatal shooting weeks earlier.“We’re out here today because the city of Los Angeles signed Vision Zero as a directive in August 2015 to prioritize saving lives on our roads — to achieve zero traffic fatalities by 2025,” said SAFE founder and executive director Damian Kevitt, who lost his right leg in a violent traffic incident in 2013.“Not manage or reduce [them] but eliminate traffic fatalities.
We are a decade later and we are at 290 traffic fatalities....
It’s a 26% increase in traffic fatalities since the start of Vision Zero.”Kevitt had been bicycling in Griffith Park with his wife in 2013 when he was hit by a car, pinned underneath it and dragged a quarter mile onto and along the 5 Freeway.The driver was never found.
Kevitt not only survived but vowed to dedicate his life to road safety advocacy, founding SAFE in 2015.At that time, Eric Garcetti was mayor of L.A., a position he held until the end of 2022.As SAFE volunteers set up for the demonstration Saturday around 8:30 a.m., a sign reading “People are dying, City Hall is failing” hung atop the steps of the buil...