Marchers Raise Awareness For Traffic Collision Victims On World Remembrance Day
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Participants marched to the United Nations from City Hall Park Sunday in effort to raise awareness and remember those who were injured or killed in traffic collisions in honor of World Remembrance Day.
Mayor Bill de Blasio met the marchers at City Hall Park to speak on the issue. Though he admitted work still needs to be done on his Vision Zero plan to reduce these types of incidents, he expressed confidence -- noting overall fatalities were down, WCBS 880's Ginny Kosola reported.
"If we had continued to lose people at the same rate as 2013, there would have been 92 people lost," de Blasio said.
Paul Steely White, Executive Director of Transportation Alternatives also expressed a need for improvement.
"We are not yet to the point where protected bike lanes, wide sidewalks, enough time for senior citizens to cross the street -- we're not yet there where these things, common-sense improvements are done routinely," Paul Steely White, executive director of transportation alternatives, said.
According to White, 13 people were killed in road traffic collisions in New York City. In early November, an 88-year-old woman was fatally hit by a cab driver, who later said he had been driving for 16 hours straight -- four hours over the 12-hour-per-day limit.
An 84-year-old woman was also killed after being hit by a bus in Queens on Nov. 5.
Earlier this week, de Blasio announced increased NYPD coverage targeting traffic-related incidents, lasting until Nov. 22.
According to de Blasio, the NYPD has doubled tickets for speeding and tripled the number of tickets for failure to yield to pedestrians.
"If it takes the presence of a NYPD officer car and an officer walking up to your window and a ticket that'll cost you a lot of money -- if that's what it takes to change the behavior -- I guarantee you we'll give you plenty of that," de Blasio said.
The World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims was established in 1995 and officially adopted by the United Nations in 2005.
