> A core principle of the vision is that "Life and health can never be exchanged for other benefits within the society"

At least in Portland this has _never_ been implemented.

Vision Zero is a failure in US cities because it is pure virtue signaling and not a good-faith, focused effort to eliminate traffic fatalities.

Leadership doesn’t give a shit, which makes sense because most voters are drivers who accept that the cost of uninhibited motoring is measured in human lives.

Largely because it's still not seen as favorable by the public to prioritize pedestrian safety over vehicular parking/speed - even in liberal areas where this should be easy. We are a car-centric society, and I'm not sure when that'll change (unfortunately).

Meanwhile road deaths per million inhabitants drastically decreased across the EU27.

https://etsc.eu/euroadsafetydata/

it's barely implemented in the US, and typically only in large cities... far too early to call it a failure, and I strongly suspect that the problem is that it doesn't go far enough (it does nothing to regulate the vehicles themselves or driving skills, for example... road design can't fix everything)

People value their own metal boxes on wheels over other people's bodies. That much should be abundantly clear to anyone who uses the road as a pedestrian or cyclist. I can't begin to imagine how cars can be compatible with society when people are like that.

To add to this, many US cities adopted Vision Zero in the 2010s with resolutions to end all fatalities involving vehicular traffic in 10 years. Some as soon as 2024. Yet, I don't see any progress showing they have gone to zero for any of those cities.

To make progress on answering that I think you'd want to compare the trajectory of traffic deaths in areas that adopted the Vision Zero approach to ones that didn't?

Well in my opinion, "Vision Zero" in the US will apply only to the peons. If you are connected with Law Enforcement or Politicians, you get a free pass unless you kill someone in such a manner that it cannot be brushed under the carpet.

In the sense that it's not been implemented, yeah, its not working.