A new report has found that there were 60 traffic fatalities in New York City within the first three months of 2024, meaning one person was killed every 36 hours, marking the highest number of deaths in a year since the city launched its “Vision Zero” road safety improvement plan a decade ago.
According to an analysis report released by the street safety advocacy group “Transport Alternatives” on April 25, this figure is higher than the 53 cases during the same period last year and 57 cases during the same period in 2022.
“After a full decade since the initiation of the ‘Vision Zero’ plan, this is the deadliest first quarter, which is unacceptable,” said Danny Harris, Executive Director of Transport Alternatives, in a statement. “New Yorkers do not need more empty rhetoric, they need and deserve real actions from leaders. Every death in these incidents could have been prevented.”
The report indicates that Brooklyn and Queens are the areas with the most severe traffic accidents, with both areas recording the highest number of deaths in a decade. Additionally, Queens has broken another record, with the first-quarter traffic fatalities in the area accounting for 37% of the total despite only 27% of the city’s population residing there.
On March 12, Natalia Garcia-Valencia, a resident of Queens, was killed by a truck from the city’s Department of Environmental Protection while walking, becoming the 750th traffic fatality in the “Vision Zero” program in the area over the past 10 years, marking a grim milestone.
Furthermore, 79% of the accidents leading to the deaths of pedestrians and cyclists in the first quarter of this year were caused by SUVs and other large vehicles. The data shows that no one was killed by a bicycle or a lightweight motorcycle; however, the number of motorcycle rider fatalities reached a record high of 26 people, the highest since 2014. Additionally, 80% of fatal accidents were due to speeding by the vehicles at fault.
The data also reveals that fatal traffic accidents are more likely to occur on unprotected bike lanes and at poorly-lit intersections.
Vincent Barone, a spokesperson for the city’s Department of Transportation, stated in a release that to improve street safety, the department has planned to remove parking spaces to increase visibility at thousands of intersections, a method referred to as “daylighting.”
Less than a week before the release of this report, New York State passed the “Sammy’s Law” as part of the budget package, which mandates most streets in New York City to reduce speed limits to 20 miles per hour in an effort to improve road safety.