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Worried about guns in NYC? Cars were more likely to kill you in 2024.
By
Catalina Gonella
Published Feb 13, 2025
Modified Feb 13, 2025
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Courtesy of Louis C. Hochman / LCHPhoto.com
By
Catalina Gonella
Published Feb 13, 2025
Modified Feb 13, 2025
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New Yorkers were more likely to be killed in traffic crashes than in shootings in 2024, according to recent analyses.
It’s at least the second year in a row that auto deaths outpaced gun deaths, with the NYPD crediting the latter in a recent announcement to its “laserlike focus on criminals who use illegal guns.”
But street safety advocates say even a decade after former Mayor Bill de Blasio launched the Vision Zero campaign in 2014 to end traffic deaths, they’re not seeing enough progress with a threat that’s more deadly for present-day New Yorkers.
Traffic crashes killed 253 people last year, according to an analysis by Transportation Alternatives, which advocates for pedestrian-friendly policies. That’s about 50 more than the 203 people known to have been fatally shot in the same time period, according to Gothamist’s analysis. Those figures include all gun deaths reflected in NYPD data and in reports collected by the Gun Violence Archive — including murders, suicides and instances where police fatally shoot people.
“There's both the opportunity and obligation for the city government to be addressing traffic crashes and people, New Yorkers, dying on the streets when they're hit by a car with the same seriousness that they're obviously taking people who are shot and killed in gun violence deaths,” said Transportation Alternatives' Executive Director Ben Furnas. “The good news is there's a lot of tools that we know work.”
In 2014, 259 people died in traffic crashes — just slightly more than 2024’s count — according to Transportation Alternatives. Traffic deaths now are about at the same level as then, the year Vision Zero went into effect, since coming down from a brief spike to 276 deaths in 2021, during the pandemic.
Shootings overall also spiked during the pandemic — interrupting a decadeslong decline —and have been coming down again since 2021.
"This type of sudden tragedy, before-their-time loss, when we learn about it in the gun violence context, spurs the government into action," Furnas said. "When we hear about it in the traffic-crash context, it sometimes doesn't move every public official that same way, but I think we really should be moved in that same way, because it's within our power to save a lot of lives and dramatically reduce this type of tragedy.”
Vincent Barone, a spokesperson for the city Department of Transportation, described the recent traffic statistics as heading in the right direction.
“While one death is too many, we are encouraged that traffic fatalities dropped last year to the lowest level since the onset of the pandemic and that we had the eighth-fewest traffic deaths since data began being collected in 1910,” he said.
Diana Silver, a professor of public health policy and management at NYU School of Global Public Health, said New York City is safer than most of the country on both traffic and gun violence per capita. There were approximately 3.1 people killed in crashes for every 100,000 New Yorkers in 2024, compared to 2.5 killed in shootings, based on the city’s estimate of 8.26 residents.
And deaths of both types declined in 2024 compared to 2023, when crashes killed 259 people and at least 224 people were fatally shot, according to the tallies.
“These are personal, horrible tragedies for the families that endure them and the neighborhoods and communities that feel these things, but the rates are not enormously high relative to the rest of the country, and that's an important thing for New Yorkers to really understand,” Silver said.
The DOT cited a litany of fixes to curb traffic deaths, including street redesigns, new pedestrian space and “hardened daylighting” — using physical barriers to block cars from parking too close to intersections and interfering with visibility.
The department also cited its state approval to dramatically expand the use of speed and red-light cameras, which it said has reduced speeding and traffic injuries at camera locations. Transportation Alternatives’ analysis says turning safety cameras on 24/7 — instead of only during school hours — helped reduce violations by 30%. The city is advocating for the state to renew authorization of the 24/7 monitoring this year.
Transportation Alternatives argues the city can do more. It notes that its analysis of last year’s crashes found that pedestrians accounted for almost half of the fatalities, with 121 killed — a 21% increase compared to 2023. The group argues daylighting should be extended to every intersection in the city. But a recent DOT analysis argues instead for using hardened daylighting “situationally” in combination with other safety techniques it says are often more effective. The DOT also says “sign-only” daylighting, without physical barriers, doesn’t seem to help at all.
Transportation Alternatives also advocates for the expansion of Sammy’s Law, which gave the city the power to lower speed limits in the five boroughs to 20 mph — something only the state could previously approve. The DOT said it’s been quickly implementing the law, targeting 250 locations last year, and implementing its first “regional slow zone” with a 20 mph speed limit for all of Manhattan south of Canal Street.
Danny Pearlstein, a spokesperson for the Riders Alliance — which advocates for mass transit users — described traffic deaths as preventable and a result of “a political failure to implement proven policies.”
"New Yorkers lost in traffic crashes are missed as much as victims of gun violence or those hit by a train," Pearlstein said in a statement.
This story has been updated with more information.
Tagged
new york city
public safety
transportation
Catalina Gonella
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