NYPD cracking down on speeding to curb accidents

The NYPD recently announced that they’ll be cracking down on speeding drivers across the five boroughs. The anti-speeding initiative is part of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s ongoing “Vision Zero” campaign designed to dramatically reduce the number of injury-causing and fatal auto, pedestrian and bicyclist accidents on the city’s roadways. Since the program began three years ago, the NYC Department of Transportation reports that the number of traffic-related fatalities has dropped 20 percent. That being said, the City still has a ways to go toward its ideal goal of zero annual traffic deaths.

The number of auto accidents resulting in serious injuries or deaths has declined recently in New York and countless other jurisdictions across the country, most likely due to a combination of vehicle safety improvements, accident awareness campaigns (like “Vision Zero and similar initiatives), tougher traffic laws, improved roadway designs and other factors. The same cannot be said for the rate of pedestrian accidents, however, which ticked up across NYC in 2016 after having fallen in prior years.

The scope

According to a spokesperson, the NYPD issued an all-time high number of speeding tickets in 2016 (137,000), and similar volume is expected to continue throughout 2017 in an attempt to reinforce the importance of obeying posted limits. In addition to monitoring speed, the NYPD has vowed to focus more efforts on curbing other bad behaviors that can lead to injury-causing accidents, including:

• Texting while driving
• Improper turning (including not sufficiently slowing down to turn and not checking intersections for pedestrians or cyclists prior to turning)
• Impaired or drunk driving
• Failure to yield to pedestrians or bicyclists
• Pedestrians not paying adequate attention to their surroundings (which could include “distracted walking” that leads to such things as inadvertently walking out into traffic and not using marked crosswalks)
• Reckless or aggressive driving

In spite of the City’s best efforts to put an end to these and other behaviors that can result in injury-causing car accidents, the simple fact is that tens of thousands of New Yorkers are hurt in crashes each year. If you or someone you love has been injured in an auto accident caused by a negligent car or truck driver, you have legal rights. Seek the advice of an experienced personal injury attorney in your area to learn more.