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Every day in America, over 100 people are involved in a life-altering crash that severely injures them or kills them. And that 100-per-day doesnt even include all the people whose lives are impacted indirectly by severe crashes. Vision Zero is a road safety philosophy that originated in Sweden in the 1990s and has since been adopted by cities across the United States and Europe. Its premise is straightforward: traffic deaths and serious injuries are preventable and can therefore be eliminated. With the right street design, traffic enforcement, and public awareness, everyone can get around safely. The problem is that severe crashes are a catastrophe so routine that it barely registers in the news cycle. Americans have been conditioned to think traffic violence is inevitable. One outcome of that conditioning is that people will campaign against transportation projects that improve safety. Thats rightagainst safety. {"blockType":"mv-promo-block","data":{"imageDesktopUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/12\/speakeasy-desktop.png","imageMobileUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/12\/speakeasy-mobile.png","eyebrow":"","headline":"\u003Cstrong\u003ESubscribe to Urbanism Speakeasy\u003C\/strong\u003E","dek":"Join Andy Boenau as he explores ideas that the infrastructure status quo would rather keep quiet. To learn more, visit \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/urbanismspeakeasy.com\/\u0022\u003Eurbanismspeakeasy.com.\u003C\/a\u003E","subhed":"","description":"","ctaText":"SIGN UP","ctaUrl":"http:\/\/urbanismspeakeasy.com\/","theme":{"bg":"#f5f5f5","text":"#000000","eyebrow":"#9aa2aa","subhed":"#ffffff","buttonBg":"#000000","buttonHoverBg":"#3b3f46","buttonText":"#ffffff"},"imageDesktopId":91453933,"imageMobileId":91453932,"shareable":false,"slug":"","wpCssClasses":""}} Heres a social media comment someone made to me in response to redesigning a street to improve safety: Members of the public communicate their risk tolerance through voting. It is the job of engineers to comply with that, not to second guess democratic choices. I get comments like that all the time, and its not just anonymous bots. Putting transportation safety projects up for a Yes/No vote reminds me of this quote thats often attributed to Ben Franklin: Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Democracy is a trap We dont vote on airplane safety. Imagine being handed a survey when you board a plane: Should the airline prioritize your arrival time or the structural integrity of the landing gear? That would be absurd. We trust aviation engineers to design safe aircraft. Passengers vote with their wallets, but no one gets a veto over whether safety is a priority in the first place. Surface transportation doesn’t work this way. When a city proposes narrowing a street to reduce speeding, neighbors show up to meetings and call it an “attack on drivers.” When a protected bike lane is added to a corridor with a history of fatal crashes, it gets removed after community complaints. When a signal timing change is proposed to give pedestrians more crossing time, it gets killed because drivers worry about congestion. When illegal parking that blocks sightlines at intersections is enforced by police, the cries of over-reach flood city hall. Safety improvements frequently die by popular vote and public pressure. Americans, given the choice between their personal convenience and other people’s safety, have repeatedly chosen convenience. This is the democracy trap: the idea that every engineering decision must survive a public referendum, including decisions that exist specifically to protect human life. There’s a reflexive response to this argument that goes: “So you want to just override what people want by taking out a lane? That’s anti-democratic.” That framing means your life, your childs life, your neighbors life, my life, are all subject to negotiation. It means a neighborhood miles away gets to weigh in on whether a dangerous intersection near your home gets fixed. It means the people who are most likely to be harmedpedestrians, cyclists, children walking to school, elderly residents are outvoted by people who are primarily concerned about shaving seconds off their drive no matter the cost to others. We don’t hold referendums on building codes. We don’t ask neighborhoods to vote on whether restaurants should have to refrigerate meat. Some protections exist precisely because they shouldn’t be contingent on majority sentiment. The same logic should apply to street design. Get out the vote The binary Yes/No vote to allow or forbid safety improvements needs to be tossed out. That doesnt mean the public should be shut out of transportation decisions, it means the kind of community engagement needs to change. Right now, transportation agencies and local governments often ask the wrong question: Do you want this safety improvement? That question is almost designed to fail, because most people don’t understand how street design contributes to crashes. They don’t know that wider lanes encourage faster driving. They don’t know that a 20 mph impact is survivable for a pedestrian while a 40 mph impact usually isn’t. They dont know that on-street parking sometimes makes a street safer and sometimes makes a street more dangerous. City transportation systems are complicated. When you ask people an uninformed question, you get an uninformed answer. The better approach is education first, options second. Explain what Vision Zero is. Show people the data on speed and crash severity. Help them understand what road diets, raised crosswalks, curb extensions, signal changes, and what each one accomplishes. Ask for input about the problems theyre experiencing: People drive too fast on this street. I wish my neighborhood was quieter. I cant see around the corner when I turn. Nobody stops their car for me at the crosswalk. The light turns red before I can walk across the street. Theres no easy way for my kids to ride bikes to school. I have to walk 15 minutes to the nearest bus stop. If I miss the bus, I have to wait an hour for the next one. That’s meaningful public engagement. It respects people’s intelligence while also respecting the reality that prioritizing human life is not up for debate. Culture shift is necessary In the US alone, tens of thousands are killed in traffic crashes every year. Hundreds of thousands more experience life-altering injuries. The idea that driving fast and without friction is a kind of birthright is woven into our infrastructure, our zoning, our politics, and our sense of personal freedom. Changng safety culture is hard, but it has changed before, in other places, and it can change here. We don’t ask voters to approve seatbelt laws every few years. We don’t hold referendums on speed limits every time someone complains. Engineers, pilots, air traffic controllers, and ground crews made aviation extraordinarily safe not by polling passengers, but by treating safety as a non-negotiable foundation, and then inviting the public to make choices within that foundation. That’s the model for reaching Vision Zero. Not a top-down dismissal of community voices, but a reordering of the conversation: safety first, preferences second. Engage people early and help them visualize what’s possible, and for crying out loud, build safer transportation systems. {"blockType":"mv-promo-block","data":{"imageDesktopUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/12\/speakeasy-desktop.png","imageMobileUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/12\/speakeasy-mobile.png","eyebrow":"","headline":"\u003Cstrong\u003ESubscribe to Urbanism Speakeasy\u003C\/strong\u003E","dek":"Join Andy Boenau as he explores ideas that the infrastructure status quo would rather keep quiet. To learn more, visit \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/urbanismspeakeasy.com\/\u0022\u003Eurbanismspeakeasy.com.\u003C\/a\u003E","subhed":"","description":"","ctaText":"SIGN UP","ctaUrl":"http:\/\/urbanismspeakeasy.com\/","theme":{"bg":"#f5f5f5","text":"#000000","eyebrow":"#9aa2aa","subhed":"#ffffff","buttonBg":"#000000","buttonHoverBg":"#3b3f46","buttonText":"#ffffff"},"imageDesktopId":91453933,"imageMobileId":91453932,"shareable":false,"slug":"","wpCssClasses":""}}
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E-Commerce
Cambodia said Friday it has drafted its first law targeting online scam centers, after vowing to shut them down by the end of April.Cambodia is a major hub for scam operations, which extort money from victims online through bogus investment schemes and feigned romances. Victims around the world are estimated to have been cheated out of tens of billions of dollars annually.At the same time, thousands of people, especially from other Asian nations, have been recruited with false job offers and then forced to work in scam centers in conditions of near-slavery.“This law is the most important legal instrument for Cambodia in combating scams online, fighting money laundering and demonstrating that Cambodia is not a paradise or a safe haven for criminals,” Information Minister Neth Pheaktra said in a statement.The new legislation approved by the Cabinet sets five to 10 years in prison and a fine of 500 million to 1 billion riels ($125,000-250,000) for organizing or directing a technology fraud site. In case of human trafficking or violence, detention or confinement, the penalties rage from 10 to 20 years plus a fine of up to 2 billion riels ($500,000). In case of a death linked to a scam center, the offense is punishable by imprisonment from 15 to 30 years, or life. Workers have died when they tried to escape.The new legislation must be approved by Parliament.Senior Minister Chhay Sinarith, in charge of the Commission for Combating Online Scams, told The Associated Press in an interview on Wednesday that the government since July had targeted 250 locations believed to be carrying out online scams, and has shut down about 200.Since last July, the government has filed 79 cases involving 697 alleged scam ringleaders and their associates, according to Chhay Sinarith.Cambodia has repatriated almost 10,000 scam center workers from 23 countries, with fewer than 1,000 waiting to return home. Others who have escaped or been released from raided centers have returned on their own.Neth Pheaktra said that the government “has made strong efforts to combat this crime in order to protect Cambodia’s reputation and economy, which have previously been damaged by online scams, and the government does not receive any revenue from these activities.”Cambodia has launched previous crackdowns but without major effect on scam centers, and some experts are skeptical it can eliminate the criminal industry.“The real question is whether this effort targets the system that enables the industry, not just the buildings where scams happen,” said Jacob Sims, an expert on transnational crime and a visiting fellow at Harvard University’s Asia Center. “Past crackdowns in Cambodia have often left the financial and protection networks intact, allowing operations to quickly reconstitute.”Associated Press writer Grant Peck in Bangkok contributed to this report. Sopheng Cheang, Associated Press
Category:
E-Commerce
President Donald Trump is scrambling to replace the revenue the federal government lost when the Supreme Court struck down his biggest and boldest tariffs last month.If the effort succeeds, congressional Democrats warn in a study out Friday, the administration’s import taxes will cost American households an average of $2,512 in 2026, up 44% from $1,745 in tariff costs last year. And this at a time when U.S. consumers are already angry over the high cost of living and the war with Iran is pushing up energy prices.“Despite a Supreme Court ruling that much of Trump’s tariff agenda is illegal, the Trump administration refuses to provide relief for families,” said Sen. Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, the top Democrat on the Joint Economic Committee. “As American families continue to struggle with high costs, the President keeps choosing to institute new tariffs that will push prices even higher.”Calling the study “phony,” White House spokesman Kush Desai said “President Trump will continue using tariffs to renegotiate broken trade deals, lower drug prices, and secure trillions in investments for the American people.”Trump last year invoked the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose double-digit tariffs on almost every country on Earth.But the Supreme Court ruled Feb. 20 that the law did not give the president the authority to levy tariffs. The government now must provide refunds expected to come to around $175 billion to the importers who paid the IEEPA tariffs now declared illegal.The administration has moved quickly to impose new tariffs, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said that that new levies “will result in virtually unchanged tariff revenue in 2026.”Trump has already announced a 10% tariff, invoking Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, and may raise it to 15%. But those levies can only last 150 days unless Congress agrees to extend them. And the Section 122 tariffs are also being challenged in court.A sturdier option is Section 301 of the same 1974 trade law, which authorizes the president to impose tariffs and other sanctions on countries engaged in “unjustifiable,” “unreasonable” or “discriminatory” trade practices. Trump, accusing China of using unfair tactics to gain an advantage in high tech industries, used Section 301 to impose tariffs on Chinese imports in his first term, and they withstood legal challenges.On Wednesday, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, announced a sweeping Section 301 investigation into whether 16 U.S. trading partners, including China and the European Union, are overproducing goods, flooding the world with their products and hurting American manufacturers.“The United States will no longer sacrifice its industrial base to other countries that may be exporting their problems with excess capacity and production to us,” Greer said in a statement. The probe is widely expected to end in a new round of hefty tariffs.“The fact that they launched 301 investigations is not surprising,” said trade lawyer Ryan Majerus, a partner at King & Spalding and a former U.S. trade official. “We all knew that’s what they were going to pivot to. The challenge is that this is way more sprawling than anyone expected.” That is because so many countries were targeted and because the inquiry whether countries have excess industrial capacity and are overproducing goods “can be framed pretty broadly.”The administration is rolling out another Section 301 investigation into banning imported goods made by forced labor. Greer told reporters Wednesday that additional Section 301 investigations could cover issues such as digital services taxes, pharmaceutical drug pricing and ocean pollution.The administration is also expected to make more use of Section 232 of Trade Expansion Act of 1962, which allows the president to impose tariffs on goods deemed to be threats to national security after an investigation by the Commerce Department. The U.S. already has Section 232 tariffs on steel, aluminum, autos and auto parts and other products.The report from Democrats on the Joint Economic Committee finds that the new tariffs will increase the burden on American households this year. That is partly because the tariff revenue would be collected for the full year; Trump needed time to impose tariffs in 2025 and occasionally suspended them.The Democrats also assume that American households will absorb 100% of the tariff cost. They cite a Congressional Budget Office report concluding that importers can pass along 70% of the tariff costs to consumers. But the tariffs also allow domestic producers to raise prices because of less competition from imports and increased demand for their tariff-free products. Combined, passed-along costs from importers and higher prices from domestic companies effectively mean that consumers end up footing the entire U.S. tariff bill, according to CBO.The Trump administration’s new tariff push comes as the war in Iran pushes up the price of gasoline and other commodities in the runup to November’s midterm elections. Voters are already disgruntled by high prices.“If the affordability and other political issues really start to become cumbersome, that certainly can impact all this,” Majerus said. “What the world’s going to look like two months from now is going to be very different from what it is now.” Paul Wiseman, AP Economics Writer
Category:
E-Commerce
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