Mayor Adams to Treat Traffic Violence “Like the Serious Crime It Is”

By Yehudit Garmaise

With reckless drivers continuing to kill pedestrians, bicyclists, and scooterists at alarming and ever-rising rates, today, Mayor Eric Adams launched three new ways to keep New Yorkers safer on the streets.

First, the mayor’s administration wants to double the rate of its current efforts to construct safety improvements at intersections citywide.

As a result, at least 2,000 intersections, where more than half of all traffic injuries and deaths take place, will receive life-saving upgrades.

A safety tool known as “daylighting,” in which parking spaces and anything else that would block drivers’ visibility of pedestrians will be removed at 1,000 of those intersections.

To further save lives, the NYPD will show that considers traffic violence as comparable to other violent crimes when the department adds traffic fatalities to its regular CompStat reporting.

“We are going to treat traffic violence like the serious crime that it is,” the mayor said. 

By making significant safety technology upgrades to city vehicles and heavy-duty vehicles of City contractors and licensees, Mayor Adams will increase the number of vehicles that are safely driving out on the roads, he said after signing an executive order. 

“Protecting New Yorkers is my most sacred responsibility as mayor, and that holds true for traffic violence just as much as any other form of violence,” said Mayor Adams. "Our streets must be safe places for all New Yorkers: pedestrians, cyclists, and motorists alike.”