Regulate Vehicle Use and Safety
When we regulate vehicles, we limit the potential for drivers to cause harm. In New York City, cars and trucks kill 250 people and severely injure 3,000 every year. Regulating vehicle use and safety reduces the likelihood and severity of injury and death -- an essential step to making people feel safe choosing to walk, ride a bike, or take the bus. More than 99% of all traffic fatalities involve cars or trucks because cars and trucks are the largest, heaviest, and fastest objects on our streets. Whether you walk, bike, or drive, reducing vehicle miles traveled, vehicle speed, and vehicle weight will keep us all safer. Transportation Alternatives is fighting to:
Pass a law requiring speed-limiters for the most reckless drivers
Fully implement Intelligent Speed Assist to all non-emergency city-owned vehicles
Discourage the ownership of large SUVs and pickup trucks that put New Yorkers at risk
Require city-owned and city-contracted vehicles to be right-sized and designed with safer lines of sight for their drivers
Regulating vehicle use and safety…
…saves lives using technology.
The City of New York reduced speeding in its vehicle fleet by 64% using automated speed limiters. Researchers predict that speed limiter technology could prevent as many as 18% of traffic fatalities in New York City.
…right-sizes vehicles.
Over the past 30 years, the average U.S. passenger vehicle has gotten about 4 inches wider, 10 inches longer, 8 inches taller, and 1,000 pounds heavier. These supersized vehicles now weigh 20% more than the average European car. For every 1,000 pounds a car weighs over a Toyota Corolla, the chance of killing another motorist goes up by 46%, and for each additional 220 lbs a vehicle weighs, the likelihood of a pedestrian dying after being hit increases by 7%.
…saves everyone money.
Smaller and more efficient vehicles are more affordable, cheaper and more efficient to fuel, cause less damage in crashes, and impose just a fraction of the damage to roads than larger vehicles.
