BETHLEHEM, Pa. — Ask public officials why traffic safety is one of the hottest topics in the Lehigh Valley, and you might expect any number of responses.
Infrastructure progress is real, but challenges remain to update the condition and capacity of many miles of roadways, one could say.
And what about the relationship between car size and injury rates? The bigger the vehicle, the less visibility it affords and the more damage it creates, another suggests.
In fact, a report published last fall by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety concluded that vehicles with a hood height greater than 40 inches — standard for a pickup or SUV — pose a much greater risk to pedestrians than smaller cars.
There’s also the reality that the Lehigh Valley region’s infrastructure wasn’t built to handle its booming population, along with extended time frames for traffic-calming projects such as installing curb bump-outs, realigning crosswalks and traffic lanes or making upgrades to traffic signals.
“It's gotten to the point our single biggest source of danger is vehicular issues."State Rep. Peter Schweyer
But for state Rep. Peter Schweyer, D-Lehigh, the problem can be boiled down to one thing above all: the Lehigh Valley driver.
"I've never seen traffic in the Lehigh Valley and the aggressiveness that we've seen in the past couple of years like it is now," Schweyer said.
"It’s absolutely [expletive] bananas to be perfectly honest, and very [expletive] dangerous.
“There's absolutely no excuse for it,” Schweyer said Aug. 27, a little more than 24 hours after Salisbury Township police disclosed they clocked a motorcycle driver at 112 mph during a traffic enforcement detail on South Pike Avenue.
'An incredibly big issue'
Schweyer serves residents of Allentown, Emmaus and Salisbury Township in the 134th District and said speeding “has been an incredibly big issue for all of us throughout the Lehigh Valley.”
“It's gotten to the point our single biggest source of danger is vehicular issues,” he said.
His comments also came hours after a 27-year-old driver fleeing police in Lower Nazareth Township lost control and went into the opposite lane of Hecktown Road, where he hit another vehicle head-on.
"You get stuck on Route 22, and when traffic clears you’re really irritated and you stomp on the gas and you speed home at 85 mph, consequences be damned.”State Rep. Josh Siegel, D-Lehigh County
The following day, Daneiris Abreu, of the Bronx, New York, was charged with homicide by vehicle and related crimes in the death of Susan Henderson of Norristown, Montgomery County.
It’s among the endless examples that have safety advocates and government officials lamenting why fatalities continue to rise across the state, even as numbers declined for the ninth straight quarter nationwide, The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reported Thursday.
Deaths, some rationalize, are simply tolerated as an unavoidable cost of getting behind the wheel.
“You grab your car keys and you walk out of your house and you don’t think twice about it,” said state Rep. Josh Siegel, D-Lehigh.
“Dependence on cars and mass mobility is something we take for granted. Then you get stuck on Route 22, and when traffic clears you’re really irritated and you stomp on the gas and you speed home at 85 mph, consequences be damned.”
'Do not want to have to live with that'
As have other lawmakers, Siegel said he has sensed the growing dangers of the roads in the frequency of wrecks reported by police, and in the number of fatalities reported by county coroners.
He said he’s also felt his blood pressure rise while watching speeding cars veer across three lanes of traffic, narrowly avoiding disaster, to get to an exit ramp at the last possible second.
Those anecdotes don’t stop at highway driving.
Drivers are racing through residential neighborhoods, blowing stop signs and red lights.
In the worst moments, Siegel said, they certainly aren’t thinking of others — community members whose lives can be snuffed out in an instant.
“I don’t care how old you are," he said. "You do not want to have to live with that for the rest of your life.”
“I don’t care how old you are. You do not want to have to live with that for the rest of your life."State Rep. Josh Siegel, D-Lehigh County
As a member of the House Transportation Committee and the Subcommittee on Public Transportation, Siegel said he believes now, more than ever, there’s a growing consensus among lawmakers to more fully address traffic safety issues.
He points to Senate Bill 37, known as Paul Miller’s Law, that recently made Pennsylvania the 29th state in the nation to ban distracted driving.
Prohibitions on using hand-held devices behind the wheel won't formally take effect until June 2025, when police can begin to issue warnings.
It will take 12 months more until citations — which include a $50 fine for each offense — can be written in June 2026.
Siegel expressed a desire to “revisit” the law again, perhaps to increase punitive damages to a large enough sum that it might truly persuade drivers to put down their phones.
Police say with court costs and fees, it could end up costing drivers more than three times that amount, or about $180.
'I fear for my kids' safety'
Siegel also is proposing amendments to other legislation he believes will make the roads safer, including establishing a system for the issuance of permits for automated license plate readers.
The system uses cameras and algorithms to detect traffic violations, providing data for police enforcement operations.
They would be mounted on breakaway, or MASH-tested poles — poles that have been crash tested under the Manual for Assessing Safety Hardware, or MASH, established by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials.
"I do think that, where possible, regular updates about the status of accidents and incidents can help let the public know issues have been dealt with [and] there’s always room for improvement.”
One place Siegel would like to see the readers installed is Union Boulevard, a major corridor on the east side of Allentown and the site of numerous fatalities over the years.
Last October, Elian K. Makdsi, 85, was the victim in a deadly hit-and-run near Jerome Street and Union Boulevard.
At the scene that morning, one resident expressed that she was fed up with speeding cars and called for more traffic enforcement and police patrols.
“I want officers out in the morning,” she said. “Stop the cars. Give tickets. They need to be around. I fear for my kids’ safety.”
The Lehigh County District Attorney’s Office has not announced charges in that case or any others for which LehighValleyNews.com requested information.
The office refused to provide updates on them, saying only that investigations are ongoing.
Earlier this summer, Allentown recorded its fourth pedestrian fatality of 2024 after having five in all of 2023. It also had five in 2022.
“I want to commend our local D.A., who I think has done a great job with transparency, communication, and more community outreach,” Siegel said.
“But I do think that, where possible, regular updates about the status of accidents and incidents can help let the public know issues have been dealt with [and] there’s always room for improvement.”
'How we're going to enforce it'
Two items where lawmakers have yet to make significant progress in Harrisburg are the expansion of things such as automated speed cameras in Pennsylvania, along with legislation that would let municipal police use radar guns.
Without being able to use RADAR or LiDAR, local police must resort to other methods to track speed of vehicles. Those methods are timely, costly and can be dangerous to set up.
In Salisbury Township, enforcement details involve officers walking into the road to alert drivers to pull over.
In Bethlehem, officers use a stopwatch and painted lines to help determine speed, Lt. William Audelo said.
“We have white lines that are painted by our streets departments and, you know, we might have 30 or 40 of them throughout the city," he said.
"So that means in roughly 20 square miles, you’re only utilizing it in 30 to 40 areas. That’s not very much. So we don’t have any technology besides a stopwatch.
“The way that our statute is written, this is how we enforce speed. So if the legislation has decided this is how we’re going to do it, this is how we’re going to enforce it.”
'We need to change the mindset'
Those comments came Aug. 29, during a pedestrian education and traffic enforcement operation with PennDOT.
Starting at 10 a.m. that day, the operation — consisting of several city motorcycle cops, two “crossers” and a camera placed on a parked car nearby — had pulled over at least six drivers in 30 minutes for numerous violations near 10th Avenue and West Broad Street.
“Traffic safety is something all of us are extremely focused on."State Rep. Peter Schweyer, D-Lehigh County
Siegel said lawmakers also are advocating for things such as expansion of automated red-light enforcement, as well as automated speed enforcement.
Such initiatives aim to help protect motorists and pedestrians across the commonwealth, but both are limited in scope and application.
Less than a handful of municipalities in the state use automated red-light enforcement, and automated speed enforcement is used only in Philadelphia.
“Traffic safety is something all of us are extremely focused on,” Schweyer said.
The larger question is whether that focus will ultimately bend the political will in a direction that will help to combat dangerous roadway conditions.
“We need to change the mindset that accepts this level of deaths and injuries,” Siegel said. “We need to create a sense of urgency when it comes to roadway deaths.”
