D.C. Police have identified a woman killed by a driver over the weekend as 24-year-old Nina Larson, an aspiring opera singer, American University graduate, and employee at the restaurant Mintwood Place. Larson is the latest victim of traffic violence in a city where deaths caused by drivers are at a record level this year, despite city officials’ pledge to end traffic fatalities.

The crash occurred at 3:30 p.m. on Saturday, in broad daylight in a section of Adams Morgan typically packed with pedestrians. Larson was crossing Columbia Rd., NW, near 18th St., directly in front of the restaurant where she worked, when a driver in an Infinity EX35 struck her, pinning her under the vehicle, according to police. The driver was turning right onto Columbia Rd. from Biltmore St. NW.

Larson grew up in New Canaan, Ct., and came to D.C. in 2015 to study music at AU. “She wanted to study music all her life,” says her brother, Peter Larson. “She just wanted to fill the world with beauty.”

Larson was working with voice coaches and applying to graduate school while working in the restaurant industry, her brother says. Mintwood Place closed on Saturday and Sunday “due to the tragic loss of one of our team members,” according to the restaurant’s website.

Larson’s brother says the family is “appropriately devastated,” particularly Nina and Peter’s parents. “They’re both just speechless and total wrecks.”

So far this year, 37 people have been killed by drivers — a 9% increase from last year at this time, the most deaths since 2008. This rising toll comes despite the city’s Vision Zero program, adopted by Mayor Muriel Bowser, with the goal of ending traffic fatalities by the year 2024. Since its launch in 2015, however, deaths have risen steadily. The program is currently under investigation by the D.C. Auditor.

Several recent crashes have killed or injured young children, drawing more attention to the problem. In April, a driver killed 4-year-old Zyaire Joshua at Georgia Ave. and Kennedy St., NW. In September, 5-year-old Allie Hart was killed in Brookland when the driver of a city-contracted vehicle hit her while she was riding her bike. In October, two children were hospitalized after being struck by a driver on Wheeler Rd., SE, while walking to school during “Walk To School Day.”

Later today, the D.C. Council is holding a roundtable on the District’s use of traffic cameras, which many advocates for road safety say are an important tool to prevent death and injury on the roads. Jessica Hart, the mother of Allie Hart, plans to testify.

“We need to effectively hold drivers and vehicles to account,” Hart says in her prepared testimony. “Vision Zero is failing and we lack the leadership for even the simplest measures.”

Peter Larson says the death of so many pedestrians in D.C. is deeply upsetting. “There needs to be a systemic address to this — this can’t keep happening, this pointless tragedy.”