Traffic violence claimed 205 lives in the five boroughs last year, according to newly released Department of Transportation data — a 19% drop from 2024, and the lowest fatality number since the city started keeping track in 1910.
The downturn in fatalities occurred during the administration of former mayor Eric Adams. Mayor Mamdani’s newly selected deputy mayor for operations, Julia Kerson, attributed the decline to street design and traffic enforcement, and said in a statement Friday that her office would continue the trend.
“No New Yorker should lose their life while walking, driving or biking in our city,” Kerson said. “Vision Zero has shown that the choices we make — how we design our streets and how we enforce traffic laws — save lives,” she added, referencing the de Blasio-era push, continued by Adams, to eliminate traffic deaths.
“Last year was the safest year on record, with the fewest traffic deaths since records began in 1910,” Kerson added, “but one life lost is one too many.”
Kerson said the Mamdani administration “will double down on street redesigns, protected bike lanes and protected bus lanes that make our streets safer and better for everyone.”
The number edges out the previous safest year on record, 2018, when 206 people were killed in traffic incidents.
The largest reduction in deaths last year was among motor vehicle occupants, which fell from a total of 52 people killed in 2024 to 31 in 2025.
Pedestrian deaths dropped from 122 in 2024 to 111 in 2025.
Twenty-one motorcyclists were killed last year, down from 31 in 2024, and moped fatalities dropped from 19 in 2024 to 15 in 2025.
Cyclist deaths fell, too — from 23 in 2024 to 20 in 2025 — though e-bike deaths continued to outpace traditional-bike deaths.
Four cyclists died atop traditional pedal-powered bicycles last year, while 16 cyclists were killed riding e-bikes — a persistent trend in deaths on two wheels.
A citywide 15-mph speed limit on e-bikes went into effect in October — but it was not immediately clear from the data if that had any effect on the fatality numbers.
Only one category saw more deaths than 2024, according to city data: two people died atop off-road vehicles — ATVs or dirt bikes — in 2025, up from one death the year before.
In addition to fatalities, traffic-related injures have fallen, as well. Injury data lags about two weeks, a city DOT spokesman said Friday, but is on track for an 8% decrease compared to 2024.
Despite the record reduction, several high-profile traffic deaths rocked New York City last year.
In March, an unlicensed driver killed a mother and her two children in Brooklyn after she sped through a red light on Ocean Parkway. The driver, Miriam Yarimi, was sentenced in November to up to nine years in prison.
A 23-year-old woman driving a stolen rental car killed two people in Chinatown in July, when she lost control and careened through a traffic island, killing and dismembering a woman sitting on a bench, as well as killing a passing cyclist.
Traffic fatalities have long plagued the metropolis.
In 1910, the first year New York City tracked traffic fatalities, 332 people were killed on the streets of Gotham, according to city data. Those numbers ticked up as cars became more prominent, with 880 people killed in traffic incidents in 1940.
In 2013, the year before Vision Zero began, 299 people were killed in traffic incidents.
