I'm concerned with the proposal to raise damage thresholds that trigger a police crash report. Virginia has plenty of dangerous infrastructure, wither because it was dangerous when it was built, or the context of the area surrounding it has changed since it was built. Crash data is one of the more effective data sources we have on tracking where this danger is manifesting so that local communities and the state can take action to provide a safer environment for Virginia citizens. Increasing the damage threshold to a level that is above what a significant number of auto vehicles and most micromobility devices are valued at has significant potential to reduce the efficacy of this data source, encouraging uninformed and inefficient infrastructure investments and perpetuating of unsafe environments, particularly in less affluent areas where the value of property that could be damaged is lower and therefore disproportionately likely to be affected by this bill. It's not clear to me why it is so necessary for the state to raise the threshold to an order of magnitude greater than the 2008 threshold, well above the rate of inflation by any comparison, when weighed against that tradeoff. I would encourage the legislature to consider thoroughly the real possibility that this bill kills Virginians by suppressing data on dangerous situations that could be fixed until someone is killed or severely injured in a vehicle collision. For what benefit are you going to spill that blood?
I'm concerned with the proposal to raise damage thresholds that trigger a police crash report. Virginia has plenty of dangerous infrastructure, wither because it was dangerous when it was built, or the context of the area surrounding it has changed since it was built. Crash data is one of the more effective data sources we have on tracking where this danger is manifesting so that local communities and the state can take action to provide a safer environment for Virginia citizens. Increasing the damage threshold to a level that is above what a significant number of auto vehicles and most micromobility devices are valued at has significant potential to reduce the efficacy of this data source, encouraging uninformed and inefficient infrastructure investments and perpetuating of unsafe environments, particularly in less affluent areas where the value of property that could be damaged is lower and therefore disproportionately likely to be affected by this bill. It's not clear to me why it is so necessary for the state to raise the threshold to an order of magnitude greater than the 2008 threshold, well above the rate of inflation by any comparison, when weighed against that tradeoff. I would encourage the legislature to consider thoroughly the real possibility that this bill kills Virginians by suppressing data on dangerous situations that could be fixed until someone is killed or severely injured in a vehicle collision. For what benefit are you going to spill that blood?