Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Monday that New York City saw the fewest traffic fatalities on record last year including a 32% drop in pedestrian deaths.
This marks the fourth year in a row of declining traffic deaths since the mayor launched Vision Zero in 2013. This is the lowest number of traffic fatalities since city record keeping began in 1910.
In 2017, 214 people were killed in traffic accidents compared to 231 total fatalities in 2016. This is opposite the national trend, as the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reported a 13% increase in traffic fatalities between 2013 and 2016.
Vision Zero was one of Mayor de Blasio's first programs since taking office, which includes $1.6 billion in road redesign, new traffic cameras, stricter police enforcement and lowering the city speed limit to 25 mph.
Between 2009 and 2013, police issued an average of 77,828 traffic speeding summons every year. Last year, police wrote 149,910 speeding summons—a 93% increase.
In the last 10 years, Queens Boulevard became a notorious city thoroughfare because of so many deaths there. City Hall spent $100 million in road design on Queens Boulevard and installed new traffic cameras.
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Source: WABC-TV
