At a vigil for 32 Sacramento crash victims, mourners say traffic deaths aren’t accidents
Michelle Silva placed a photo of her and her husband, José Luis Silva, next to the orange traffic cone that bore his name and the date of his death. He was one of 32 people memorialized at a Thursday vigil in Fremont Park for those who died in vehicle crashes on Sacramento city streets in 2024.
The collision that killed José Luis occurred Aug. 25, 2024, when he was riding his motorcycle through midtown, less than five months before the vigil. He was 55. When Michelle stepped up to the microphone to speak, she got through 29 words before her voice broke and she began to cry a little. She gathered herself, then said, “My husband, José Luis. He was one of the ones who was lost.”
She insisted to the crowd of around 40 people gathered at the Slow Down Sacramento’s vigil that city leaders could do more to stop fatal vehicle collisions from happening in the first place.
“These tragedies are not inevitable,” she said. “They are preventable. They should not have happened.”
The city itself agrees with her that the deaths are preventable. In 2017, Sacramento leaders made a “Vision Zero” pledge to end all traffic fatalities and severe injuries by 2027.
The city is not on track to achieve that goal. Former and current members of the City Council made speeches about the need to fund infrastructure improvements, but their statements were mostly not followed by action. In the years after the pledge, budget documents show that the City Council made no significant change to the way it funded road improvement projects through the Department of Public Works. The improvements that have been made are largely funded through grants that Public Works staffers cobble together.
In June, the City Council approved recommendations to make streets safer from its Active Transportation Commission but ultimately declined to fund them. The 2025 recommendations will be presented to members of the council Tuesday at an 11 a.m. meeting of the Personnel and Public Employees Committee, well ahead of the council’s June budget vote.
Councilmembers call for road safety funding
Councilmember Caity Maple spoke at the vigil Thursday night and said, “We must find an ongoing, permanent source of funding for these projects.” She called for a ballot measure in the 2026 election to secure such funding.
“Every time I get a phone call” about another traffic death, Maple said to the crowd, “it’s always a punch to the gut.”
She was standing in a circle of cones with the names of those who died: Mattie Nicholson, 56; Kate Johnston, 55; Jeffrey Blain, 59; Aaron Ward, 40; Michael J. Kennedy, 40; Federico Zacarias Cambrano, 28; Marvin Moran, 22; Sam Dent, 41; Daniel Morris, 38; Terry Lane, 55; David Rink, 51; James Lind, 54; Tyler Vandehei, 32; Jose Valladolid Ramirez, 36; Larry Winters, 76; Sau Voong, 84; Johnnie A. Fite, 82; Robert Kohler Jr., 50; Edward J. Lopez, 61; David D. Taylor, 60; José Luis Silva, 55; Geohaira “Geo” Sosa, 32; Kaylee Xiong, 18; Muhammad Saddique, 64; Azure Amonti Daniels, 48; Duane Ashby, 35; Martin Chavez, 41; Daniel Lee Jennings Jr., 54; Jordan Nicolas Rodriguez, 38; Alfred Ramirez, 23; Nelson Lee, 64; and Lindie Kraushar, 53.
After Maple spoke, two more councilmembers — Roger Dickinson and Phil Pluckebaum — echoed her calls for increased funding. Gesturing to the 32 dead, Dickinson said, “The debt we owe them is to make our communities safer for all.”
In the fall, Maple began the process of formally declaring a state of emergency over pedestrian and cyclist safety, and the council will vote on the matter in the coming weeks. The proposal foregrounds the most vulnerable road users — 20 out of 32 people who died in 2024 were walking or biking, and two more were on electric scooters. However, making roads safer for pedestrians and cyclists by forcing drivers to slow down also helps ensure the safety of people traveling in vehicles.
Another mourner at the vigil challenged the idea that fatal crashes are “accidents.”
Erika Pringle, 37, whose younger brother was fatally struck by a driver while riding his skateboard at Folsom Boulevard just outside city limits, spoke at the vigil as well. Andrew “Drew” Pringle was crossing the street on April 23, 2023, when, Erika said, a driver ran a red light and hit him. She called for harsher sentencing for drivers who kill people, arguing that the current system was dismissive of families’ pain.
Her little brother was just 21. He was, she said, “mangled,” but he was an organ donor and saved two lives the day he died.
The loss of her brother wasn’t just hers, she said: These preventable deaths deprive the greater community of a loved one, a neighbor, a friend.
“The world,” she said later, “is missing out.”
Slow Down Sacramento said it planned to hold the vigil annually for roadway victims.
This story was originally published January 3, 2025 at 12:38 PM.
