There's a growing school of thought in America that if we want safer roads, we need to design them better rather than have police write more tickets. But in an Atlantic essay, Gregory H. Shill of the University of Iowa College of Law makes the case that an inadvertent experiment in New Jersey shows how shortsighted that is. From July 2023 to March 2024, troopers there wrote 61% fewer tickets than normal for speeding, drunk driving, and other violations. And the downturn in tickets "coincided with an almost immediate uptick in crashes on the state's two main highways," the New York Times reported. Roadway fatalities ticked down nationwide in 2024, but in New Jersey, they rose 14%.
"The obvious conclusion: The withdrawal of enforcement in the Garden State led some motorists to drive more recklessly," writes Shill. "For better or worse, law enforcement is necessary for traffic safety." That runs counter to thinking of the Vision Zero movement, whose lofty goal is to eliminate all traffic deaths almost exclusively through better road design and "self-enforcing" design features to encourage safer driving, writes Shill. Think "narrower lanes that encourage drivers to slow down, curb 'bumpouts' that widen sidewalks and shorten crosswalks, and other physical changes meant to calm vehicular traffic."
Yes, smarter design should be a factor, writes Shill. But those who want the police to butt out—even if the rationale is legitimate criticism of racial disparity in traffic stops—are misguided, he argues. "Changes to street design simply do not address the leading causes of crash deaths: failure to wear a seatbelt, drunk driving, and speeding." Plus, pretty much the entire increase in US road deaths in 2010 happened in accidents at night. "America's enormous traffic-death rate is a complex problem," he concludes. "As New Jersey has recently reminded us, enforcement must be part of the solution." (Read the full essay.)
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