We need state help to make our roads safer for pedestrians

The latest victim’s name was Daniel Minehan. He was 75, and he was killed while running across the road in Colonie in late March.

This kind of tragedy has unfortunately become relatively routine over the past year in Colonie.

On September 1, 54-year-old Deborah Carpenter, a Wendy’s employee, was critically injured in a suspected hit-and-run on

Loudon Road.

Three weeks later, on Sept. 21, 39-year-old Jeremy Williams was struck and killed by a driver while riding his bike on Central Avenue near the Northway southbound exit.

The following month, Randall

Schanz, 32, was killed while walking on Loudon Road, the same road where Carpenter was struck.

These deaths and injuries have mostly been low-profile, and treated as separate incidents. But they are local evidence of a deadly trend under way in streets around the state and the country: Pandemic stress, and a surge in reckless driving, have contributed to escalating road carnage. New data from the National Safety Council indicates that traffic deaths rose more than 20 percent nationally over just a twoyear period.

Against this disturbing trend, we join a group of advocates

from around the state in pushing forward a groundbreaking package of reforms: the Crash Victim Rights and Safety Act. This package of eight traffic safety bills introduced in Albany this legislative session has the potential to save lives in the Capital Region.

The Albany Common Council passed a resolution in March supporting the package in full. We hope our support will grab the attention of our state leaders.

Car crashes are still the leading cause of injury-related deaths in New York and are a direct result of a lack of legislation regarding the safety and rights of pedestrians.

One of these bills, sponsored by Assemblywoman Patricia Fahy, D-albany, would provide additional state resources to communities like Colonie and Albany should they want to construct “complete streets” features — such as enhanced crosswalks or bike lanes — on dangerous stretches like Loudon Road. These kinds of features might have saved people like Schanz.

Other measures in the package would improve drivers’ education training and provide some basic legal protections to people who are injured (or, if they are killed, to their families), assuring they can access police documents related to their case and providing them an opportunity to provide a victim impact statement. It would also allow localities greater authority to set their own speed limits, using local knowledge about local conditions, rather than leaving those decisions to distant state dictates.

Another measure, sponsored by Phil Steck, D-colonie, would establish a safe passing distance for drivers overtaking cyclists.

Local leaders like us want to do more to protect people like Carpenter, who rode her bike to work every day at Wendy’s, where she was a longtime and wellliked employee. She often got off work at 3 a.m. – too late to take the bus – and was wearing a reflective vest when she was apparently struck and left in the roadway.

Changing the conditions to make roads safe for people like Carpenter will take bold, concerted, long-term effort. But it’s too big of a job for local leaders to take on by ourselves. We need strong state partners to help us respond to the rising epidemic of traffic deaths and injuries on our streets.

We call on our Capital Region delegation to pass the Crash Victim Rights and Safety Act in full.