If you live anywhere in New Jersey, consider signing this petition against the proposed widening of the NJ Turnpike in South Jersey. Widening roads doesn’t cure congestion; it just gets more cars on the road. That’s more emissions, more sprawl, more truck-served warehouses, and more motor vehicle fatalities.

You may have read that motor vehicle fatalities in New Jersey are rising and cops aren’t issuing enough traffic tickets. This got me thinking, which parts of NJ are affected the most?

I found this 2019 article on NJ.com: “The deadliest N.J. counties for traffic crashes, ranked from least to most.” The problem is that more populous counties have more motor vehicle fatalities in part because they simply have more people traveling around.

I’m more interested in fatality rates, fatalities as a proportion of vehicle miles traveled. This gets us closer to answering the question: If you’re traveling in X County, what’s the chance that you’ll die—or kill—in traffic?

So I grabbed the latest traffic fatalities report from the NJ State Police and daily average vehicle miles traveled from NJDOT. This includes all road users: Drivers, passengers, pedestrians, and cyclists.

And here they are, the deadliest counties:

Sources: NJ State Police, NJDOT

Here’s a map:

Traffic fatalities occur most often in South Jersey and some of North Jersey’s more rural or exurban counties. It’s not because we drive way more than other counties; sorting by VMT shows Central and less remote North Jersey counties generally drive much more. Salem County drives the fewest miles but fatalities occur most often there.

It turns out car-dependence isn’t working out well for us. But rural life doesn’t need to mean more driving and danger. Even rural communities can be walkable and not car-centric! See Alan Fisher’s video on Hawley, Pennsylvania. Hunterdon County is the 2nd least deadly, proving the rest of rural Jersey can do better.

But it’s not all dandy up north. Essex County stands out among its neighbors. Hudson, despite being our most urbanized county, has nowhere near the lowest traffic fatality rate.

What to do about it

There are tons of improvements that will make our roads safer. Our goals should include calming traffic; making all roads accessible and safe for all users, not just drivers; providing reliable, convenient alternatives to driving; and increasing trips taken without cars. Here are some videos that impressed me recently:

“Crossing the Street Shouldn’t Be Deadly (but it is),” by Not Just Bikes - Lists tons of specific road safety improvements your town needs like continuous sidewalks, raised intersections, and elimination of slip lanes.
“Roundabouts vs Traffic Lights,” by John Stossel - Shows how roundabouts are a safer, cheaper, more efficient alternative to traffic lights.
“Stop SIgns Suck and We Should Get Rid of Them,” by Not Just Bikes - How about actually making drivers stop?

That’s all great, but we must make our governments actually do this stuff. Let’s say you know a street, road, or stroad near you needing improvement.

Step 1: Figure out which government is responsible for it. Is it a municipal, county, state, or Federal road? My borough has them all, and they all suck.

Step 2: Complain. Use your speaking-to-the-manager skills for good. Go to a town/city/township/borough/county council/commission meeting and ask them for bike lanes—protected by physical barriers like bollards—and traffic-calming features like raised intersections, raised crosswalks, and continuous sidewalks. If it’s a state road, NJDOT won’t take your complaint directly; you must convince your local government to complain to NJDOT. If it’s a Federal road, I don’t know what to do, but try asking your local council.

You’d be surprised how receptive local politicians can be to someone who bothers to show up to a council meeting. Just don’t be too jerky. That said, they can also give you kind words with no action. Follow up with specific requests for Feature X at Intersection Y. Ask for updates.

Look out for “orange-washing,” where governments pretend to make roads safer. Even if your town adopts a Complete Streets plan, changes a street to match that plan, and wins awards for the redesign from Serious Professional Organizations, the street can still suck. See Strong Towns’ analysis of Ager Road in Hyattsville, Maryland.

Step 3: Organize. If there are any local environmentalist groups in your area, reach out to them and talk about reducing your town’s car-dependence. Beyond that, I’m not very qualified to speak on organizing. But I’m still organizing in real life and so can you.

Step 4: If there are no other ideas or you’re kind of isolated, try an educational petition. Local news is dying, and what’s left is usually very pro-car. If your petition tells the story of how your roads got so bad and how nothing is being done to fix them, you’re giving people in your community a fresh perspective and a specific action thing to do about it. You may be surprised by the responses. See my petition linked at the top for an example, or this one I wrote for safer streets in Glassboro.

Sidenote: Population

Fatalities / VMT isn’t the only way to measure the Motor Vehicle Fatality Rate. Just in case the VMT data quality isn’t great, I looked at Fatalities / Population, as well.

Sources: NJ State Police, US Census Bureau

The results are mostly the same. Salem County is the deadliest. South Jersey is deadlier than North Jersey—even more so, by this measure.