Dear Editor,

Two recent Lookout articles, as well as other published information, make crystal clear that City Council members do not want or deserve future election support from the roughly 60 percent of Santa Monicans who commute by car to earn a livelihood, or the thousands more who drive their children to school, or drive to a Medical appointment here (for themselves or a loved one) or to a Santa Monica business establishment.

What substantiates this opinion? The ongoing campaign, led by Dan Hall, Caroline Torosis, Jesse Zwick and Natalya Zernitskaya, that puts drivers and their passengers at risk for serious injuries, increases dangerous traffic congestion, and blames all drivers for Santa Monica’s historically abysmal traffic safety failures.

As a Lookout article notes, motorists and their passengers suffered more severe injuries in 2025 (at least 23) than pedestrians (22) and nearly 5x more than bicyclists (“Fatal, Severe Injury Crashes Fall,” March 6, 2026).

Yet within a week of revealing this data, the City announced a crackdown on “dangerous driving” for the safety of people “biking or walking” (“Police Crack Down on Dangerous Driving, ” March 13, 2026).

Nary a peep of concern for the safety of Santa Monica drivers and their passengers.

But aren’t drivers generally responsible for dangerous traffic safety conditions? Digging into City-supplied data says “no” (“Bicyclists Share Fault in Serious Crashes, Data Show,” December 14, 2023).

Specifically, while the City reported motorists “at fault” in 40 of 52 Fatal and Severe Injury collisions in 2025, 23 of those involved only motor vehicles, so nobody except a motorist could be at fault. And nobody except a motorist and/or their passenger(s) could be injured.

I did not see any City-supplied “at fault” data for anyone except motorists in that 2025 FSI data, but 15 years of City statistics (2010-2024) are instructive, showing bicyclists at fault about half the time in FSI collisions involving/injuring them. (Pedestrians are almost never at fault, while vulnerable to injury from cars, bicycles, and scooters.)

Yet, despite bicyclist safety violations causing nearly half of all FSIs, the rare times in which the City “targets” safety violations that include bicyclists (or pedestrians), they simply do not issue bicycle citations nearly as often as motor vehicle citations.

How unequal is enforcement? Overall, bicyclists cause nearly as many FSI collisions as drivers, but are ticketed at about half the rate of drivers in traffic safety crackdowns.

SMPD arrest data does show recent arrests of dangerous scooter operators, and an apparently intoxicated pedestrian, but bicyclists habitually ignore safety laws, including running through stop signs and red lights, making unsafe turns, traveling against traffic, and even endangering pedestrians by traveling on sidewalks or in crosswalks.

Try anything that stupid in your car and see how quickly you are arrested for reckless driving.

Despite hard data showing motorists suffer more injuries than bicyclists or pedestrians, certain Council Members continue to serve up nonsense, recently rejecting staff-recommended safety plans for Santa Monica Boulevard and demanding changes to prioritize bicyclist and pedestrian safety, while ignoring protecting drivers.

Meanwhile, the same City Council crew is moving ahead with more bike lane construction and anti-automobile “traffic calming” (i.e., congestion creating) infrastructure on Broadway.

So for those Santa Monicans unlucky enough to commute, drive school-aged children, attend Medical appointments, or shop via Santa Monica Boulevard or Broadway, (or anywhere else in the city for that matter) watch out for yourselves, because the City Council won’t.

Sincerely,