Will create an office of road safety to improve pedestrian safety in New York City.

The Office of Road Safety is a multi-agency effort to reduce danger to pedestrians in New York City. The initiative will support a dedicated, robust and effective collaboration between representatives from the NYPD, Department of Transportation, Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and the District Attorney offices. The office will coordinate new efforts to deter dangerous driving, craft enforcement priorities, strengthen prosecution, urge driver education, support safe street design and collect epidemiological research efforts in order to reduce the number of vehicle crashes that kill and injure New Yorkers and cost the city tens of millions of dollars each year.

The complex nature of this issue, which straddles road design, vehicular law enforcement, prosecution and medical professionals, precludes the possibility of any one City agency effectively ameliorating the problem on its own. Only with collaboration--looking across all relevant City agencies--can this multifaceted problem be fully addressed

Crashes, injuries and fatalities on New York City streets are preventable. Despite recent positive trends, more than 250 New Yorkers were killed on New York City's roads in 2009. Injuries to pedestrians exceed 10,000 annually. Being hit by a car remains the number one cause of injury-related deaths in children 1-14 years of age and the second leading cause of these deaths in those over the age of 45. It is truly a public health epidemic that impacts the most vulnerable users of our roadways.