By Briant Novinska-Lois
The most effective way to stay safe on city streets is remarkably simple: drive less. A new report from StreetLight Data suggests that the vehicle miles traveled (VMT) is the single most important factor in determining how safe a city’s streets are for everyone. Risk is not solely caused by bad drivers; daily driving habits and city layouts play a significant role as well. With U.S. crashes resulting in 2.4 million injuries or deaths in 2023, one of the best safety strategies for planners and engineers is to help people spend less time behind the wheel of a car by making walking, biking, and transit easier to use.
The report, Safe Streets Index, looked at five variables in the 100 most populated areas in the country. Researchers found VMT contributed the most to risk, with a nearly direct link between the total miles driven and the reported number of fatal crashes. In addition to examining VMT, researchers also looked at how speeds vary between vehicles on the same road, risks to people walking, the volume of truck traffic, and how often people speed through neighborhoods.
In larger cities, the design of urban infrastructure plays a key role in shaping transportation choices. According to the report, “dense, transit-centric metros like New York, San Francisco, and Chicago rank high for limiting VMT exposure.” In such cities, residents and visitors experience robust systems that decenter car culture and reduce car trips, enabling them to walk, bike, or use transit more easily and frequently, lowering their risks of being involved in car crashes.
On the other hand, the report ranked cities in the Southeast and Southwest lower on the index. This might be due to cities in these regions being more car-dependent, with less emphasis on creating dense, pedestrian-friendly environments and efficient public transit. As a result, residents are generally compelled to drive longer distances – not only to get to work, but also for basic daily activities, such as grocery shopping or seeing the doctor.
These findings challenge some more conventional views of traffic safety. Measuring road safety as deaths or serious crashes per mile, as is often the case, can obscure them. David Zipper recently explained this issue for Bloomberg’s CityLab:
To draw an analogy with health care, focusing on deaths per mile driven is like trying to reduce the number of cancer deaths per cigarette smoked. Doing so is a worthy medical goal, one that might be pursued through earlier disease detection, improved treatments or less carcinogenic products. But a public health strategy would go further by deterring more people from ever using tobacco in the first place.
Along the same lines, effective urban design should not only aim to make driving safer but also reduce our reliance on personal vehicles altogether. The report by StreetLight Data underscores the link between total miles driven and roadway safety, shedding more light on the pressing need to prioritize and invest in non-car transportation modes. While the U.S. saw a small 8% drop in road deaths in 2025, we remain a dangerous outlier globally (with a rate nearly four times higher than countries with the lowest rates) due, at least in part, to a forced reliance on personal vehicles. By focusing on urban planning that enhances walkability and transit accessibility, communities can significantly reduce their VMTs and save lives.
Photo credit: Eric Galvan via Pexels. License.