“He wasn’t paying attention.” “She was talking on the phone.” “The child suddenly ran out in front of my car. There was nothing I could do.” It seems that for every road crash we have an excuse ready. Alcohol. Bad roads. Child chasing a ball. Dumb engineering. Faulty driver. We could work our way through the whole alphabet without ever getting to the obvious: people will make mistakes. If the goal of a transport system were to ensure safety as well as mobility, we would design one that lessened the chance that human error will lead to devastating injury or death. Instead we maximize that chance by putting individuals into cars and encouraging them to go at high speeds. If we were to be honest, we would admit that traveling at speeds above about 30 km/hour often prove deadly to pedestrians. (See http://humantransport.org/sidewalks/SpeedKills.htm) If we were honest, we would admit that only by decreasing car use and increasing transport by walking, cycling, and public transit can we bring down deaths. (See, for instance, http://t.co/Ii1x0OFCGI) But why be honest when we have a whole alphabet soup of excuses ready to continue with a transport system that is deadly to us, to our environment, and to our economies?