NYC broke a record and went 58 days without any pedestrian deaths

• New York City broke a record by going 58 days without a single pedestrian death, officials said.
• The city's transportation commissioner, Polly Trottenberg, testified before City Council's transportation committee this week and said traffic collisions are down — but speeding is still a major issue.
• Traffic levels across the city — and the county — have dropped by 41% in recent months due to stay-at-home orders that have largely kept Americans off the roads.
• Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

For the first time since New York City began recording data on the issue in 1983, the city has gone 58 consecutive days without a single pedestrian death.

The city's transportation commissioner, Polly Trottenberg, revealed the numbers during her testimony before City Council's transportation committee on Wednesday.

She attributed the shocking figure to the fact that the city has been under a stay-at-home order for most of those days, due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Traffic levels across the city — and the county — have plummeted while nonessential businesses remain closed and residents have been staying home and off the roads. The Washington Post reported that traffic nationwide has dropped by 41%.

New York City has been working for years to dramatically reduce traffic deaths, and Mayor Bill de Blasio's Vision Zero plan has vowed to eliminate all traffic deaths by 2024.

But the number of pedestrians killed in traffic crashes ticked upwards to 219 deaths in 2019 from 203 deaths in 2018, signaling a troubling trend.

A recent New York Times analysis of city crash data concluded that careless driving has been the main culprit for traffic deaths and injuries, including driver inattention, failure to yield, and speeding.

The New York Police Department also told CNN that overall traffic collisions causing injuries between April 13 and May 10 have dropped 69% from the same period last year.

But Trottenberg warned that there are still road-related dangers even with the reduced traffic — namely, speeding.

"Unfortunately some drivers are taking advantage of our empty streets to speed recklessly, and we know we can never let up our vigilance," she told the committee.

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