NEW YORK (1010 WINS) — New police data shows a troubling increase in traffic fatalities this year under the Adams administration which promised to build on the former mayor’s “Vision Zero” initiative to eliminate traffic deaths.
Traffic deaths have surged 35 percent this year with 58 people, including pedestrians, dying in car crashes compared to 43 people killed in the same period in 2021.
“We’ve seen deaths going down for decades, really since about 1990. Steadily. The long trend has been down. We are losing that long trend. This could be the fourth year in a row of traffic deaths going up,” Jon Orcutt, advocacy director of Bike New York and former policy director of Mayor Bloomberg’s Department of Transportation, told the New York Post.
One theory some traffic experts are touting for the increase is a reduction in NYPD enforcement which leads to vehicular “chaos” in streets.
The number of summonses issued for “hazardous” driving conditions decreased by 57 percent in 2021 with the police handing out 387,469 summonses, down from 902,482 in 2019, the Mayor’s Management Report, which tracks performance by city agencies, shows.
Driving while intoxicated arrests also fell by 56 percent in the same time period. There were only 2,583 DWIs citywide for 2021 compared to 5,826 in 2019, the report shows.
In a statement to the Post, the NYPD said the recent deaths are “most prevalent … during the overnight hours” on highways uptown and in the Bronx. The department added they have plans to increase the Highway Unit’s enforcement.
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