New York City's pedestrians are notorious for crossing the street when it's not our turn, for behaving as though it's not a life our death situation, like our frail bodies could match up against the metal behemoths of cars.
Well, in a horrible and tragic twist, we're still very much vulnerable.
Twelve people in NYC have been hit and killed by cars in as many days.
The list of deaths is gut wrenching.
Ten-year old Nyanna Aquil was killed in the Bronx on halloween. In Cypress Hills Brooklyn, a bus ran over a woman and killed her. In Bay Ridge Brooklyn, a drunk driver killed Wiktoria Filc, a 19-year-old passenger.
The NYPD is responding in kind to this agonizing list of accidents. According to CBS, more than 1,000 officers have been committed to different traffic-related bureaus.
The NYPD's also deployed 230 extra highway police officers and 1,185 extra traffic enforcement agents to crack down on speeding, distracted driving, and failure to yield to pedestrians.
When a cab driver struck and killed 88-year-old Lusia Rosario last week, that cab driver said he'd been driving for 16 hours straight. This is four hours over the city's 12-hour per day limit.
Mayor de Blasio spoke about these alarming deaths. His response? That his Vision Zero program is succeeding, but not succeeding enough.
According to de Blasio, Vision Zero is succeeding because 117 pedestrians had been killed by this time last year, and since only 104 pedestrians have been killed so far in 2015.
Of course, while we can't deny that that's an improvement, how can anyone be satisfied with that tenuous silver lining?
The NYPD seems to be in agreement, as they plan to increase crackdowns on jaywalking, too. So be more cautious about it even if it's only to avoid getting a ticket. Though we'd prefer your life to be your motivation if you can stomach that.
DNAinfo reported that NYPD officers plan to increase ticketing against jaywalkers. By Monday, officials said they'll be increasing enforcement on jaywalking through summonses and tickets.
gvelez1174 Safest Driver Awards presented at today's #VisionZero #seminar at Queens Theatre. Drivers from all 4 #NYC agencies were recognized. I enjoyed hearing about the newest #innovations and #bestpractices being introduced in the #transportation #industry. And I got to get #outoftheoffice !
"If you're crossing in the middle of the street, you're wrong, you're endangering yourself, you're endangering others, you're endangering drivers," said Assemblyman Mike Simanowitz.
"Elected officials are going to start getting phone calls when people start getting summonses," Simanowitz said. "Don't call me. I'm not going to agree with you."
We're usually all about freedom and not getting summonses, but when it comes to life or death, we're going to have to stake our claim with Simanowitz on this one.
It's probably time we all started acknowledging the facts that cars are really dangerous, that they can kill us, and that we should cross when it's our turn to walk and not before.
Usually, we all giggle and guffaw about the fact that New Yorkers jaywalk. Now that so many people are dying, though, it's time we all started to take the situation more seriously.
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[via CBS]