Friday’s Headlines: Dusk and Darkness Edition

A new DOT "heat map" shines new light on the agency's efforts to reduce the high number of fatal and severe traffic crashes that occur in the dark early evening hours of the fall and winter.

The chart shows significantly less red — representing severe and fatal crashes — during the autumn evening hours than it showed when DOT first launched its "Dusk and Darkness" education and enforcement initiative in 2016.

The improvement is substantial and suggests the campaign made an impact, but it's difficult to draw conclusions about causation, as we noted in our 2017 coverage of the campaign.

DOT also implemented other major safety improvements during the period since "Dusk and Darkness" began, including the expanded rollout of speed enforcement cameras, traffic calming and bright streetlights.

"Comparing [the] earlier period (2010-14) to most recent period, Dusk & Darkness has clearly helped turn red boxes into pinker ones," DOT rep Mona Bruno said in an email.

In other news:

• Mayor Adams flew all the way to DC only to abruptly turn around and come home after the FBI raided his campaign finance director's home in Crown Heights. (NY Times, The City)
• Who is Brianna Suggs? The Zoomer campaign staffer under legal fire is reportedly the god-daughter of top mayoral advisor and safe streets saboteur Ingrid Lewis-Martin. (City & State, Daily News, NY Post)
• Elderly woman dead with two drivers on the lam after monstrous double-hit-and-run on Fulton Street in Bed-Stuy. (Daily News)
• Uber and Lyft agreed to pay millions into the state's worker's compensation fund. (The City)
• Former NYPD Commissioner signs with the Mets. Great, but what we really need is pitching. (Gothamist)
• Sunday is the marathon — and the car-loving NY Times found a way to ruin it.
• Climate protesters risked arrest at City Hall on Tuesday in opposition to the mayor's watering down of building emissions regulations (Gothamist)
• Former NYPD Chief of Department abruptly resigns from Suffolk top cop job. (NY Post)
• The disaster of a bill to stifle e-bike use in New York City picked up more sponsors.