DOT commissioner blames holiday season for car crash deaths

DOT Commissioner Polly Trottenberg attributed a recent rise in car crash deaths to the holiday season. Eagle photo by Jonathan Sperling

By Jonathan Sperling

Deadly car crashes have spiked in recent days and the Department of Transportation Commissioner says the holiday season and early sunsets are contributing to the problem.

Late December often sees an increase in traffic-related injuries and fatalities due to Hanukkah and Christmas shopping, as well as the number of delivery box trucks on the street, DOT Commissioner Polly Trottenberg said at a press conference in Long Island City Monday. Ttraffic fatalities have increased citywide for the first time in six years, she said.

“This time of year, when the days are short but people are out with a lot of activity, turn out, unfortunately, to be very deadly,” Trottenberg said.

A staggering six pedestrians were killed between Wednesday and Friday in traffic collisions that took place in Queens, Manhattan and Brooklyn. One of the pedestrians, Zhisheng Lin, 67, was the victim of a fatal collision on Sanford Avenue in Flushing after being struck by a driver who was trying to turn into a parking garage on Dec. 18. Lin was rushed to the hospital with head trauma and died the next day.

The city has recorded a sharp increase in cyclist deaths this year, with more cyclists killed in 2019 than any other year since 2000. A majority of cyclist injuries and fatalities have been recorded in Brooklyn, but Queens has recorded a total of 816 cyclist injuries between Jan. 1, 2019 and Dec. 15, 2019, according to NYPD data.

Still, Trottenberg said, Queens streets are the second safest they’ve been since the city launched its Vision Zero program in 2014. A total of 28,415 collisions have been reported in the Queens South patrol area this year, down from 29,255 in 2018. The same trend exists in the Queens North patrol area, where 33,766 collisions were reported this year, down from 35,424 in 2018.

A total of 64 traffic-related deaths have been reported in Queens so far in 2019. Vision Zero aims to eliminate traffic deaths citywide by 2024.

“We’re talking about numbers here, but these are not just numbers. This is our family, our friends, our coworkers, our neighbors, our fellow New Yorkers,” Trottenberg said. “I know certainly from City Hall, from the mayor on down, DOT and NYPD, obviously we grieve over all those fatalities.”