A Note to City Staff Worried About Admitting Traffic Safety Mistakes
One of our Local Conversation groups in Texas has been working to bring the Crash Analysis Studio model to their city. They’ve done the outreach. They’ve built relationships. They’ve studied the method. And when they approached city staff with the idea, they hit a wall.
Not an angry wall. Not a hostile wall. But a quiet, familiar kind of institutional resistance, the kind my colleague Edward Erfurt refers to as the technical brush off.
After listening closely to the feedback from staff, the group identified a familiar set of challenges—patterns that will resonate with anyone who’s tried to push for change inside city government:
Resistance to adopting something unfamiliar
Anxiety within city hall about being blamed if something goes wrong
Departmental silos making coordination difficult
A deep-rooted instinct to defer action until a formal traffic study is completed
Each of these concerns is real. But each of them also misses the point. The Crash Analysis Studio model doesn’t assign blame. It doesn’t ask for perfection. And it doesn’t require permission. It invites professionals—and the public—to come together and learn from tragedy so that fewer people have to die.
We’ve seen this kind of resistance before. I have written extensively about a similar dynamic in Springfield, Massachusetts. There, a clearly unsafe street design near the Central Library had contributed to multiple pedestrian deaths over the years. I had offered to help the city pro bono. They declined. And when another person was killed, the family’s lawyer reached out to see what recourse they had.
As it turns out, not much. Massachusetts has a liability cap for municipalities: $100,000 per incident. That means even if the city was grossly negligent, the maximum penalty was capped. In that moment, I realized something important:
Liability caps aren’t there to shield governments from scrutiny. They exist to make it easier to act. To try something better. To acknowledge errors and make change.
Texas has a similar law. Under Sec. 101.023 of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code, municipalities are liable for a maximum of $250,000 per person and $500,000 per incident in cases of bodily injury or death. That’s not nothing. But in a city budget measured in the billions — like Dallas, Houston, Austin, and San Antonio — it’s a rounding error.
This limit doesn’t mean cities should be reckless. It means they should be responsive. It means that nobody on staff should fear being blamed for admitting a shortcoming. It means interdepartmental silos shouldn’t be an excuse for inaction. It means we don’t need to spend months waiting for another traffic study when someone has already died.
The Crash Analysis Studio model asks a simple question: Can we look honestly at what happened here and do better? It doesn’t require outside consultants or expensive plans. It requires people who care enough to learn from adverse outcomes.
If your city is hesitant, it’s likely not because they’re being irresponsible. It’s because they’ve been conditioned to fear the consequences of action more than the costs of inaction. But let’s be clear: The real liability isn’t doing something and getting blamed. It’s doing nothing and letting someone else die.
When we know something is wrong, liability limits should prompt us to act immediately to save lives. There should be more fear of inaction than fear of getting an informed change wrong.
The city’s technical staff aren’t the villains here. They’re the ones who understand the systems. They know the weak spots. They have the tools to make change. But they need support, not silence. They need a way to work across departments, with the public, to find low-cost ways to make dangerous streets safer.
That’s what the Crash Analysis Studio provides. It’s not a gotcha. It’s a lifeline.
Yes, adopting something unfamiliar can feel risky, especially in institutions where the safest move is often doing nothing at all. But when lives are at stake, inertia is its own danger.
Fear of blame, particularly within Public Works, is understandable, but the Crash Analysis Studio doesn’t assign fault—it creates space to learn and improve.
Departmental silos are real, but the Studio invites collaboration around a shared purpose: saving lives.
And while traffic studies have their place, they should inform long-term strategy—not delay the simple, immediate fixes we already know can help. The way forward isn’t perfection or consensus. It’s movement.
If you’re a city employee in Texas—or anywhere else—worried about trying something new, remember this: You’re protected. So do something.
Click here to learn more about the Crash Analysis Studio model, including the 5 most common factors that contribute to car crashes and how you can prevent them quickly and cheaply.
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Charles Marohn (known as “Chuck” to friends and colleagues) is the founder and president of Strong Towns and the bestselling author of “Escaping the Housing Trap: The Strong Towns Response to the Housing Crisis.” With decades of experience as a land use planner and civil engineer, Marohn is on a mission to help cities and towns become stronger and more prosperous. He spreads the Strong Towns message through in-person presentations, the Strong Towns Podcast, and his books and articles. In recognition of his efforts and impact, Planetizen named him one of the 15 Most Influential Urbanists of all time in 2017 and 2023.