There is a worrying trend in the US that has seen motor vehicle deaths spiking by 24% in 2020, despite a sharp decrease in miles driven due to the pandemic.
This article does a good job of explaining why this is an issue and some potential remedies to address the problem. However, I take issue with its blaming most of our driving woes on regulators. While it's true that a few reference documents (detailed in the article) are used to design most streets, it fails to address the fact that most drivers probably don't want to drive one street with lowered speed limits. Nobody, when behind the wheel wants to suffer from delays in getting from point A to point B, it's just human nature.
In Toronto, we've seen a decrease in the speed limit on most surface streets from 50 to 40 km/h recently, but based on my casual-empirical observations, this hasn't stopped anyone from speeding. It may get you a ticket more easily, but that's not solving the problem, just addressing one of its symptoms.
There are many precedents for safer street designs that take into consideration the safety of all users and have proven to be effective. Things like chicanes and design features that block the drivers' line of sight naturally force people to slow down. Surprise, surprise, we tend to not speed when we can't see where we're going.
Instead of clamouring for more regulations and ever-more restrictive speed limits, which is just another top-down, one size fits all way of solving the problem, a cultural shift is required. We can always wish for politicians to have more balls and make the necessary changes, but that won't happen either, as they're too scared of being booted out in the next election cycle.
I think the most effective and timely way to achieve this is to employ guerrilla tactics. Just get together with your neighbours and reclaim your street. Maybe you can shut it down for a day and allow your kids to finally play ball hockey on the street. The residents of Cowan avenue in Parkdale hold a street-wide garage sale every year, called Cowanation. Street festivals routinely take over various neighbourhoods every summer, what's stopping us from doing more of that with a focus on the street and the neighbourhood instead of drunken bros?
That would make the city safer, but more importantly more interesting as well and reinforce the local community bonds in the process. Win-win.