Investigations
Black, Latino and Older Chicagoans More Likely to Die in Traffic Crashes, Data Shows
(benkrut / iStock)
Black Chicagoans are nearly four times likelier than White residents to be killed in a traffic crash, according to city of Chicago data obtained by WTTW News.
That same data shows people 70 and older are more than 1.7 times as likely to die in a traffic crash in Chicago as the average fatality rate of those ages 20 to 69 — and that Latino residents, too, are almost twice as likely as White Chicagoans to be killed in a crash.
The statistics, compiled by the Chicago Department of Transportation by comparing 2021 crash data with information from the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office, are a key justification for members of the Chicago City Council looking to lower the city’s default speed limit from 30 mph to 25 mph.
While the disparities in the data are evident, researchers say there is no one clear answer for why they exist and are likely the result of systemic inequalities and issues of infrastructure.
“The people who are victims of traffic violence, crashes and fatalities, they look like the people that we care about from an equity perspective,” said Ald. Daniel La Spata (1st Ward), who’s been leading the charge to slow down drivers. “This impacts Black and Brown communities, it impacts children and seniors the most. We cannot claim in the city to care about equity if we don’t care about traffic violence.”
Despite making up about 29% of the city’s population, Black Chicagoans comprised 61% of traffic deaths in 2021, city data shows. White Chicagoans accounted for just 13% of fatalities, even though they make up about 33% of the city’s population.
Fatal traffic crashes are also more heavily concentrated on the South and West sides, CDOT and the Chicago Department of Public Health told alderpeople at a hearing last year.
“What we know is that traffic-related mortality disproportionately impacts people of color … what we do not know is why,” said Dr. Olusimbo “Simbo” Ige, CDPH commissioner. “We want to understand traffic safety, and as with other public health issues, it is complex.”
Researchers in recent years have been digging into those complexities — and finding higher rates of traffic fatalities among people of color across the U.S. that comport with Chicago’s findings.
A 2021 report from the Governors Highway Safety Association found that the group they describe as American Indian/Alaska Native had far higher rates of traffic deaths, at 145.6 per 100,000 people. Black Americans had the next highest rate at 68.5 per 100,000, compared with 58.1 for the overall population.
Adam Snider, the GHSA’s director of communications, said the nationwide disparities in traffic deaths are one symptom of historic, systemic disadvantaging of communities of color.
“We need to prioritize infrastructure investments in underserved areas,” Snider said. “We need to ensure traffic enforcement is fair and equitable and there’s absolutely zero discrimination in policing, because there are proven safety benefits to it, and there’s no place for that discrimination. We need to get decision makers out into more communities of color where they traditionally have not been to hear directly from residents (about) what they need and want.”
A 2022 analysis conducted jointly by the Boston University School of Public Health and Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health took into account the number of average miles traveled by people of different races and ethnicities; whether someone was walking, cycling or in a vehicle; and time of day. The authors concluded that racial and ethnic disparities in traffic deaths were even higher than previous estimates when accounting for how much time different demographic groups spend on the road.
“Traffic fatalities in general are a public health epidemic in our country, and they have been for decades,” said study co-author Matthew Raifman, a BU doctoral candidate at the time who’s now a transportation safety researcher at UC Berkeley. “We also have the systemic racism and systemic disparities in our society, and so I think it is intuitive to be looking at those together.”
In one stark example, the Harvard-BU study found that Black Americans riding a bike were an estimated 4.5 times likelier to be killed than White cyclists, and while walking at twice the rate of White pedestrians.
While the results are compelling, study co-author and Chan School research associate Ernani Choma cautions that “our data doesn’t allow us to answer the question of why, and I think everyone is interested in that question.”
Among the potential factors, Choma and Raifman said, are road conditions, driver behavior, emergency response, the health care crash victims receive, and the issue of increasingly larger vehicles. With outsized cars, trucks and SUVs making up an ever-increasing share of what Americans drive, Choma said that has disparate impacts beyond traffic fatalities.
“When we’re talking about bigger vehicles, they’re a big problem for health effects from air pollution and climate change as well,” Choma said. “In the literature we see a lot of Black and Hispanic Americans exposed to much more harmful levels of transportation air pollution.”
In Chicago’s analysis, people outside of a vehicle made up about a third of traffic fatalities across races and ethnicities. Those vulnerable road users, and the disparity in age and race among traffic deaths, are among the key reasons that some city officials are eager to lower the speed limit.
Raifman agrees that slower vehicle speeds contribute to better potential outcomes in a crash, but encourages decision makers to think big picture and not focus too heavily on a single solution.
“It’s not that we shouldn’t think about investing in problem areas — we should be, but … it ends up being a little bit of, you’re trying to put out fires, but there are new fires popping up everywhere. And I think that’s because there are these systemic problems in our society,” Raifman said.
Many backers of lowering Chicago’s speed limit agree. The ordinance to lower Chicago’s default speed limit cleared the Pedestrian and Traffic Safety Committee in October by a vote of 8-5. Along with that measure, alderpeople also approved a one-year pilot program that would allow residents to submit complaints — backed with photo evidence — of drivers illegally taking up a bus or bike lane. Additionally, the committee signed off on a resolution creating a working group to come up with ways Chicago can change its traffic ticketing system so Black, Latino and low-income residents are no longer disproportionately hit with fines.
At the October meeting, some of La Spata’s colleagues questioned why lowering the speed limit was of critical importance when the city is beset by other issues like violence and homelessness.
“When is the right time?” La Spata said in an interview. “I have stood next to parents who have lost their children to traffic crashes, who have lost 4-year-olds, 5-year-olds, 7-year-olds. How can I possibly stand next to them and then say, we’re going to figure out the right time to do this? For them, the right time is right now.”
Despite the pushback, advocates are confident that alderpeople will ultimately view the speed limit measure as worthy of their support, and a move that peer cities have also seen success with.
“Everyone cares about this as an issue,” La Spata said. “I think not a lot of people realized that statutorily lowering the speed limit would make people actually drive more slowly. When you share with them that research confirms this in so many different cities that have taken the same step, I think it’s very compelling.”
La Spata had hoped to bring the three-ordinance package to a full City Council vote before year’s end, but that was stymied by the city’s protracted and contentious budget negotiations. He’s now looking for a vote at the meeting scheduled for Jan. 15 and said he’s “very hopeful” that extensive outreach to different caucuses and alderpeople will garner the needed support.
Contact Nick Blumberg: [email protected] | (773) 509-5434 | @ndblumberg
