New York City Faces Deadly Year on the Road with 11% Increase in Traffic Fatalities in Q1

NEW YORK — New York City is on its way to one of its deadliest years on the road.

Fifty-one people died in traffic accidents during the first three months of the year, according to new figures released by Transportation Alternatives. That number of deaths represents an 11% increase over the same period in 2022.

If the trend set in the first quarter of 2023 holds, the city could see the “deadliest year for traffic violence since 2014,” the group said Monday.

“As record numbers of New Yorkers turn to bicycling, the City must do everything in its power to keep them safe,” said Danny Harris, Executive Director of Transportation Alternatives. “We know what works – smaller vehicles, slower speeds, protected bike lanes and bus lanes, automated enforcement and better street design – and we need our leaders to treat this crisis with the urgency it deserves.”

At least one in three traffic deaths between January and March occurred in just one borough: Queens. Dolma Naadhum is among those killed. The 7-year-old girl was struck by an SUV whose driver allegedly failed to come to a complete stop at an Astoria intersection, city officials said.

The streets of New York City have proven especially deadly for the city’s cyclists. In the same time period, nine cyclists were killed, that’s a record under Vision Zero.

Transportation Alternatives notes that this year’s cyclist fatalities are more than the first quarters of 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017 combined. One of the deaths this year was a 37-year-old mother struck while riding a bicycle in Brooklyn. Sarah Schick was struck by a truck in an unprotected bike path in Gowanus in January.

“New York City cannot continue to stall and ignore important deadlines to build safe infrastructure, especially after the City completed only two-thirds of its legally-mandated bike lanes last year,” Harris continued.