New Yorkers have been presented a wealth of statistical information by the ambitious traffic study that the Bloomberg administration released last week.
The 50-page-report repudiated some of the most commonly held beliefs about traffic accidents in the city, showing that yellow taxis, trucks, and buses are involved in far fewer pedestrian accidents than private vehicles. In addition to that, jaywalkers accounted for fewer pedestrian accidents than those who obeyed the traffic laws and wait for the ‘walk’ sign.
New York officials plan to re-engineer intersections and reduce neighborhood speed limits as a result of these data.
The study examined more than 7,000 crashes that occurred in the five boroughs between 2002 and 2006 that involved the severe injury or death of a pedestrian.
Other interesting points of data include the fact that:
*Residents 65 and older make up 12 percent of the city’s population but account for 38 percent of pedestrian deaths.
*Elderly Asian-American drivers had a fatality rate about twice the average of all other elderly drivers, likely due to the fact that they “tend to be clustered in high-density, high traffic neighborhoods with genreally acknowledged pedestrian safety challenges.”
*Motorcyclists were killed at a rate 18 times that of occupants of enclosed motor vehicles
If you or someone you know has been involved in a car accident, contact the New York City car accident lawyers of Parker Waichman Alonso LLP at 1-888-244-2273 today.
