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Cycling Deaths Have Double in NYC

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Cycling Deaths Have Doubled Over Last Year In NYC

Earlier this year, WNYC set up an interactive graphic to keep track of all the traffic deaths that occurred in NYC. As of March 19th, there were 45 deaths; as of June 5th , about 10 weeks later, there were 100 deaths. And now on October 15th, about 130 days later, we've reached 200 traffic fatalities.

Let's break down the data a bit:

  • 101 deaths have been pedestrians. Out of those, at least 40 were killed while crossing the street (which doesn't take into account people killed trying to cross a highway). At least 7 people were fatally struck by buses; at least 2 people were fatally struck by cyclists.
  • 17 bicyclists have been killed.
  • 59 drivers have been killed, along with 21 car passengers.
  • 161 drivers are adults, at least 8 are children, the rest are unknown.
  • 72 people were killed in Queens, 61 in Brooklyn, 32 in Manhattan, 27 in The Bronx, and 8 on Staten Island.

WNYC adds some extra context from last year's data: "At the end of September 2014, 190 people had been killed in traffic crashes in New York City, compared to 203 at the same point last year. The death toll has risen for one group - cyclists, with more than twice as many killed this year than last year."

This ignominious milestone comes at the same day that Gotham Gazette released a fascinating report looking at all the children killed (more than 15K) in traffic incidents between 2005 and 2012, coming to the conclusion that children from poorer neighborhoods are much more likely to be injured or killed by cars while walking. One other interesting trend they noticed: a majority of pedestrian crashes in Brooklyn and The Bronx happened along the obscure, invisible lines that distinguish one police precinct from another.