New York will try 20 mph speed limit

New York is trying new methods to get motorists to obey the city's 30 mph speed limit. The New York Times reports that in some locations, LED displays will be erected that show a walking skeleton whenever a vehicle is detected moving too fast. The electric skeleton will be accompanied by the exhortation "SLOW DOWN." Unless otherwise posted, the speed limit in the city is 30 mph. 

In the Claremont section of the Bronx, the city will go a step further, experimenting with dropping the posted speed limit to 20 mph. This will be part of a pilot program to improve safety in residential areas. 

In 2010 the city launched a "That's why it's 30" public education campaign aimed at alerting drivers to the much greater likelihood that they'll kill someone if they run into the person at 40 mph rather than at 30 mph. The program points out that the speed limit is set at 30 mph "largely because a pedestrian struck at 40 mph is 3.5 times more likely to be killed than one struck at 30 mph."

"According to Transportation Alternatives, 39 percent of motorists drive in excess of the city’s 30 mph speed limit, regardless of the presence of pedestrians or even school children," Streetsblog reported. "Its ubiquity notwithstanding, speeding is far from a victimless crime. Speeding-related crashes killed 71 people in the city in 2009, and injured 3,739."

"Today’s announcements [May 12] came as the United Nations launched its 'Decade of Action for Road Safety' campaign to reduce traffic fatalities in 120 countries," Streetsblog noted. "By 2020, said Secretary General Ban, the UN hopes to save five million lives worldwide. On a global scale, he said, road fatalities are the leading cause of death of people age 15 to 29, and kill 1.3 million every year."

As for the status of Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan, who has been strongly criticized in some quarters for installing many miles of bike lanes, Mayor Michael Bloomberg praised her performance. “The bottom line is you’ve done exactly what we’ve asked,” Bloomberg said. “You are saving lots of lives.”

The city's goal is to reduce traffic fatalities by 50 percent by 2030, according to the Streetsblog article by Brad Aaron.