FAIRFAX COUNTY, Va. (7News) — New concerns are being raised about safety along Richmond Highway in Fairfax County, where advocates say the busy corridor is becoming increasingly deadly and needs immediate action from local and state leaders.
“We call these crashes. We don’t call them accidents because accidents infer it was unavoidable,” Mike Doyle, Executive Director of Northern Virginia Families for Safe Streets, said. “Now, every one of these could have been avoided.”
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Doyle, who founded the pedestrian safety group, is referring to the number of crashes from the past nine years, released in their new report examining the data.
The report found that 62 pedestrians and cyclists have been seriously injured or killed on Route 1 from February 2017 through December 2025. The report breaks that down as 40 people critically injured and 22 killed.
Doyle points out that 95% of the deadly crashes happened at night, leading the group to believe nighttime conditions are the dominant risk factor, even though there are streetlights.