There is a crisis in pedestrian injuries and fatalities

A 44-year-old woman is mowed down by a reckless motorcyclist on a busy sidewalk in Jackson Heights. A 78-year-old woman is killed by a car driver on the Upper East Side. An 86-year-old man is struck by a city truck driver. A 50-year-old man is fatally struck by the driver of a Nissan SUV.

All in just three days last week.

The city has seen a sharp rise in the number of pedestrians killed and injured: between January 1 and June 17, 55 pedestrians were killed, the second highest number at this time of year since 2016, according to figures from the Department of Transport:

And the deaths only tell part of the story. According to the NYPD, pedestrian injuries are up 3.6 percent so far this year. Through June 16, 4,036 pedestrians have been injured, an average of 24 pedestrians per day in this city. That’s up from 3,895 injuries during the same period last year.

So far this year, Brooklyn has been the epicenter of the crisis. 1,411 pedestrians have been injured here, or 35 percent of all pedestrians. Queens is next with 1,105 injured pedestrians, or 27 percent.

Some anti-bicycle groups likely blame cyclists, e-bike riders and moped riders for the pedestrian injury crisis, but the statistics do not support this.

Between January 1 and June 14, 2024, police identified the vehicle that injured 3,479 people – 273 pedestrians, or 7.8 percent of whom were injured by drivers of a bicycle, moped, scooter or e-bike.

During the same period in 2023, police identified the vehicles involved in accidents in which 3,359 pedestrians were injured – and 261 people, or 7.7 percent, were injured by drivers of a bicycle, moped, scooter or e-bike.

In other words, in both years, more than 92 percent of all injured pedestrians were injured by drivers of cars, trucks and other heavy vehicles.

And of the 49 pedestrian deaths in the NYPD’s crash database (the database lags behind the DOT’s 55 deaths), three people were killed in a crash involving the rider of a bicycle, moped or e-scooter. The rest, more than 94 percent, are killed by drivers of cars, trucks and other heavy vehicles.

Still, pedestrians are becoming safer in the long run. In 1990, for example, 366 pedestrians were killed by motorists in New York City, and in recent years the number has fallen to about a third. But that doesn’t mean the news is all good.

“The Department of Transportation chart shows that pedestrian deaths have increased significantly during Covid and have stayed that way,” said former Department of Transportation official Jon Orcutt. “There is no theory as to why it has gotten worse, but it is simply more of the same: inadequate or no city response to traffic deaths, declining enforcement of traffic and parking laws, drivers increasingly understanding and taking advantage of this and using taped-up license plates to trick cameras because there is no enforcement, more cars, more congestion and therefore more aggressive drivers, changes in road design that are too slow and underpowered to keep up with both of these problems, and longer-term problems like increasing vehicle size.”

The Ministry of Transport did not respond to a question about the events.

It’s also worth asking Governor Hochul’s office what she plans to do with the zone designated as Manhattan’s central business district for congestion charging purposes. According to the NYPD, 375 pedestrians have been injured in Manhattan below 60th Street so far this year – 12.3 percent more than the same period last year.

The introduction of a city toll should reduce the number of cars entering this area every day by 100,000, which would probably have a correspondingly positive effect on the accident rate.

“For someone who supposedly cares about affordability and the cost of living, the governor is strikingly indifferent to the immense financial costs New York families suffer from car crashes that result in death and serious injury, not to mention the emotional and physical devastation,” said Danny Pearlstein of the Riders Alliance.

The governor’s office did not respond to a request for comment.