This US City Continues To Rack Up Deadly Crashes After Promising To End Them

Long Beach, a coastal city in Los Angeles County, is known for more than just its waterfront neighborhoods. Visitors can imagine what transatlantic travel was like on an iconic ocean liner with a stop by the moored Queen Mary, kitesurf along the Belmont Shore, and celebrate Chinese culture at the Long Beach Dragon Boat Festival every July. Unfortunately, the city is also renowned for significant challenges when it comes to road safety, and despite pledges from the city council for change, the roads remain more dangerous than ever.

While Long Beach did not make Allstate's 2025 list of the most dangerous cities in which to drive, which includes destinations like Boston and Los Angeles, it had more than 50 fatal traffic collisions in 2025, according to the Long Beach Post. And 2026 is off to a shaky start. In late January, a Tesla plowed into a coffee shop overnight. No one was killed, but the shop remains closed. Earlier in the month, a woman was arrested on suspicion of being connected with not one but two fatal crashes, including a bicyclist who was struck and died in October and a hit-and-run incident in January that killed two and injured three others. While Long Beach isn't the riskiest city for drivers, the statistics are concerning.

In 2016, the Long Beach City Council announced plans to eliminate death and serious injury due to traffic incidents by this year –– 2026. Instead, more fatal traffic accidents were reported in 2025 than the city had seen in more than 10 years. Despite assurances from local officials, many residents don't feel safe and say more needs to be done.

Various factors can play into fatal car accidents, including distracted and impaired driving, but in Long Beach, speeding is usually the culprit, and it's often pedestrians and bicyclists who pay the price. Of the 53 fatal accidents in 2025, 32 deaths were people on the streets, walking, biking, or riding a scooter. The Long Beach Post reports that the head of the local neighborhood association, Jesus Esparza, has communicated residents' ideas and requests for better lighting, delayed green lights to assist pedestrians, and speed humps to slow down drivers to the City Council.

The Long Beach Public Works, however, says that simple fixes won't work and instead is focused on speed management and reduction. In 2025, the city completed a $44.2 million project that included new bike lanes, crosswalks, and other measures on Artesia Boulevard, a busy and oftentimes dangerous street. In early 2026, the city also voted to reduce the speed limit on many other streets, though some residents are skeptical that it will do any good.

Long Beach will install speed cameras this year, but until then, speed reduction strategies only work if they're enforced. According to an analysis by the Long Beach Post, the total number of speeding tickets issued in the city dropped in 2024 versus 2023 by almost 1,000 tickets. While residents wait to see if the new measures will work, some are so concerned about deadly crashes that they're dropping off reflective vests on street corners, hoping pedestrians will use them at crosswalks and leave them for somebody else.