Title
A MOTION requesting the King County executive to evaluate strategies to improve traffic safety along county-maintained roads and roadway segments in and around the Fairwood community of unincorporated King County and to prepare a report.
Body
WHEREAS more than one million trips are taken on King County's unincorporated one-thousand-five-hundred-mile road network each day, and
WHEREAS many county agencies have responsibilities for the safety of drivers and pedestrians using the county's unincorporated roads. The road services division of the department of local services is responsible for the safety and maintenance of the county's roadway network, the King County sheriff's office is responsible for enforcement of traffic laws, the King County district court is responsible for adjudicating and processing traffic enforcement citations, and the department of public health is responsible for monitoring safety and public health risks including those related to traffic safety, and
WHEREAS, the Washington Traffic Safety Commission reports that 2023 recorded over eight hundred traffic related fatalities across the state of Washington, the most the state has seen since 1990, and
WHEREAS, traffic crashes are a significant source of injuries and fatalities in King County each year. The Washington Traffic Safety Commission and the road services division of the department of local services report that from 2018 to 2022, six hundred twenty people died in King County in a motor vehicle-related crashes, seventy of which occurred on county-maintained roads and an additional three thousand three hundred seven people were seriously injured, two thousand four hundred ninety-two occurring on a county-maintained road, and
WHEREAS, the department of public health reports that speeding is a major cause of traffic crashes, particularly in those crashes resulting in injury or fatality. From 2018 to 2022, speeding contributed to one hundred ninety fatalities and seven hundred...
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