The rise in deaths comes even as crashes and traffic plummeted during the coronavirus pandemic. City transportation officials say speeding and other reckless behavior on the city’s emptier roads, especially at night, caused the increase.
Julia Kite-Laidlaw, the transportation department’s head of policy for Vision Zero, the city program to reduce road deaths, said many police reports this year involved drivers speeding and vehicle occupants not wearing seatbelts. “These are the kind of things where choices as drivers and motorcyclists really matter,” Ms. Kite-Laidlaw said.
Through Dec. 16 this year, New York City had recorded 234 total road deaths, including pedestrians and cyclists. They include 115 car drivers, motorcyclists and passengers who have been killed, a 69% increase from the same period last year and the highest number of such deaths since 2006. Meanwhile, pedestrian deaths are on track to reach a record low this year.
The fatalities have mounted despite the total number of crashes in which people were injured or killed falling to about 22,000 for the period from April through Nov. 30, about 30% lower than the same period last year, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of transportation department data. For every 1,000 serious crashes during the pandemic, there were 8.6 deaths—almost twice as many in the past three years.
Ms. Kite-Laidlaw said the increase in road deaths has been concentrated on highways and in the outer boroughs, especially in Queens, where fatalities including pedestrians and cyclists rose about 25%, and in the Bronx, where they rose about 50%, compared to the previous three years.
A New York Police Department spokesman said the number of marked police vehicles deployed across the city to monitor traffic hasn’t changed this year. NYPD Chief of Transportation Kim Royster said her officers set up “safety corridors” in areas where speed and fatal crashes are common, parking vehicles at the side of the road to monitor behavior and encourage drivers to slow down. “Visibility is very important,” Chief Royster said.
Drivers involved in deadly crashes in New York City this year cover all age groups. But they are overwhelmingly men, according to city data. A recent survey by AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety found that men were more likely than women to speed, tailgate and to merge dangerously.
Economic downturns and reduced road congestion usually lead to lower fatality rates, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, a federal agency. NHTSA researchers found in a recent report that the pandemic has bucked this trend with a rise in fatality rates nationwide.
The researchers noted an increase this year in frequency of speeding as well as in deaths among passengers not wearing seatbelts, especially men aged 18 to 34. They also suggested that older drivers, who are typically more careful, have minimized travel during the pandemic, while younger, less risk-averse drivers have taken to the roads.
Ms. Kite-Laidlaw said that of the 66 motor vehicle occupants who died through Dec. 16 in New York City, 23 weren’t wearing a seatbelt. Among motorcyclists who died in a crash, only 14 of the 49 riders were properly licensed and registered.
The federal researchers also noted an increase in drug and alcohol use because of pandemic-related stress, as well as a reduction in policing as departments have been strained by the virus. Arrests for driving while intoxicated and driving without a license are down more than 50% so far this year in New York City, according to NYPD data.
Chief Royster said the reduction mainly is due to officers being out sick or to greater demand for policing civil unrest earlier this year. But she said officers have maintained significant enforcement against speeding. The NYPD spokesman said 140,000 speeding summonses were issued between November 2019 and November 2020, about 7% lower than a similar period a year earlier.
The city also deploys speed cameras at 750 school zones that are in operation on weekdays between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. Speed-camera tickets peaked in April at just over 500,000 that month, according to city data. Since then, they have decreased to about 300,000 tickets issued in November.
The NYPD has also devoted resources to crack down on drag racing, police officials said. Congestion has returned to many roads during the day, but traffic at night remains much lighter, providing opportunity for those who want to speed.
This fall, the city lowered the speed limit by 5 miles per hour on stretches of nine major roads that had a high rate of crashes. But it cannot change limits on highways, which are controlled by New York state. Ms. Kite-Laidlaw said it was too soon to say whether the changes have had an effect.