Vision Zero

New York City district attorneys are integral to street safety. Ideally, in addition to ensuring that victims see justice, district attorneys can deter dangerous driving by holding people accountable for committing acts of traffic violence.

Within months of taking office, Mayor Bill de Blasio signed into law several bills intended to add teeth to his Vision Zero street safety initiative. In the year since taking effect, however, the most important of those laws was barely used by NYPD.

Yesterday the 104th Precinct, in Queens, tweeted a photo of officers giving a ticket to a cyclist. The precinct deleted the tweet when it triggered blowback from street safety advocates, but you can see it at the end of this post. "Bicyclists are no exception to Vision Zero," it read. "Ride safe!"

In February, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced a pilot program to add side guards, which prevent people from being dragged beneath the rear wheels of large vehicles, to 240 trucks in the city fleet. The Department of Citywide Administrative Services, which is managing the rollout, said today that it is two-thirds done with the project, and expects to have the job done by the end of the year. Still, there's a long way to go before all city-owned trucks have this lifesaving add-on.

Texas cities are some of the most dangerous places in the U.S. to walk or bike -- or drive, for that matter.

Just in time for the start of the school year tomorrow, DOT has announced that it has finished installing speed cameras at the 140 school zone locations allowed by Albany.

The first New York City pedestrian fatality of 2015 occurred in the 19th Precinct, on the Upper East Side, when Uber driver Aliou Diallo ran over Wesley Mensing and Erin Sauchelli at E. 62nd Street and Lexington Avenue.

Last weekend marked the one-year anniversary of the Right of Way Law, also known as code Section 19-190, which made it a misdemeanor for motorists in New York City to harm people who are walking and biking with the right of way.