A group advocating for safer streets in Northern Virginia has created a map documenting the number of near misses experienced by pedestrians and bicyclists in the area.
“Each year, more than 40,000 people, the population of a small city, are needlessly killed on American streets and thousands more are injured,” is the opening statement that one will read when they go into the “Why it matters” section of the NOVA Families for Safe Streets website. This small, but growing, organization seeks to educate and advocate for policies which will create safer streets not just for drivers but for pedestrians and cyclists in Northern Virginia.
Started in 2017, the organization began in Alexandria after founder Mike Doyle got hit by a car in 2016. Doyle, an investment banker in healthcare technology by occupation, went through three years of neurological therapy to recover from a car hitting him at what he was told was 10 miles per hour but may have been significantly faster if it was able to put him in need of recovery for so long…