40,000 People Died on California Roads. State Leaders Looked Away

40,000 People Died on California Roads. State Leaders Looked Away

Noozhawk republishes news articles from CalMatters on state and local policy issues that affect Santa Barbara County readers.  At a California State Senate committee hearing this year, the director of CalTrans, Tony Tavares, showed a simple chart that might have caused the assembled lawmakers some alarm. It was a series of black bars representing the death toll on California’s roads in each of the past 20 years.  Fatalities had been falling unti…

Nearly 40K people have died on California roads in the past 20 years. State law hasn’t changed

At a California State Senate committee hearing this year, the director of CalTrans, Tony Tavares, showed a simple chart that might have caused the assembled lawmakers some alarm. It was a series of black bars representing the death toll on California’s roads in each of the past 20 years. Fatalities had been falling until 2010, when the bars started getting longer and longer. A blood-red arrow shot up over the growing lines, charting their rise, …