Bill de Blasio campaigned on a lofty goal of creating a New York in which there are zero traffic fatalities by 2024. But if the past few months are any indication, the task will be Sisyphean indeed: November saw more cyclist and pedestrian deaths than any month since January of 2012.
The latest NYPD crash report [PDF] details the terrible month, in which an astonishing 25 pedestrians were killed (along with five motorists, three passengers and two cyclists). The most significant contributing factor to the crashes, by far, was driver inattention or distraction, which was found to play a role in 2,560 of the total 17,749 collisions that occurred. "Following too closely" was the next most problematic behavior, and "failure to yield to right of way" trailed behind that.
By the end of November, 161 pedestrians and cyclists were reported killed by city motorists in 2013, and 14,721 injured, compared to 138 deaths and 13,965 injuries for the same period in 2012, Streetsblog reports.
The night before Thanksgiving, three pedestrians and one cyclist were killed within a 30 minute window. Two were also left dead following separate crashes the night of November 15.
