Are we being killed by traffic engineers? Shocking revelations from Wes Marshall

Our guest this month is Wes Marshall, Author of the thought provoking book, “Killed by a Traffic Engineer.” This book has certainly ruffled feathers amongst some elements of the traffic engineer “establishment.” So much so that some state DOT’s (Departments of Transport) in the USA have banned the book from their libraries.

But that hasn’t stopped staff from those DOT’s creating unsanctioned discussion groups to study the book’s many revelations.

Irene talked with Wes in Perth just after he’d given his keynote address to the 2025 Australian Road Safety Conference in late October.

Wes Marshall, PhD, is a professor of civil engineering at the University of Colorado Denver, where he holds a joint appointment in urban planning.

He plays a pivotal role as director of the university of Colorado's Human-Centered Transportation program and their Transportation Research Center. Wes is a licensed Professional Engineer and focuses on transportation teaching and research dedicated to creating safer and more sustainable transportation systems.

Wes, also has a podcast called Look Both Ways that he cohosts with David Zipper. During covid lockdown he wrote “Killed by a Traffic Engineer - Shattering the Delusion that Science Underpins the Transportation System”

You can find out more about Wes and subscribe to his newsletter via his website.

You can buy his book here.

We’d like to give special thanks to the organisers of the Australasian Road Safety Conference, including Elissa Lulan, who arranged a quiet room for the interview and kindly allowed us to display our Squeaky Wheel Podcast banner at the conference.

 

What’s Up?

One interesting story that we edited out of our “What’s Up?” segment for the sake of brevity, but you might like to look at, is this very demeaning to cyclists and tone deaf poster that Irene saw on the Transperth train that was taking her back to the airport at the end of the conference.

Irene’s post about this literally went viral:

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7387447368486420480/

Phil spoke about the new Sea Otter Australia cycling festival that he attended. This is the first annual edition of huge, long-running Sea Otter cycling festivals held each year in the USA and Europe.

He also spoke about receiving and reading “Life After Cars”. If you haven’t yet heard about this excellent book, then please take a look.

Irene attended a webinar sharing the results of the new 2025 National Walking and Cycling Participation Survey.

She was then heading to Barcelona to speak at the Tomorrow Mobility World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. Then to Hobart for the 2025 National Parks and Leisure Conference in Hobart, Tasmania before finishing her “conference blitz” at the ITS Australia Summit on the Gold Coast, Queensland. ITS stands for Intelligent Transport Systems.

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