New York City logged 6,625 crashes in April 2026, on the heels of 6,488 in February and 6,773 in January, according to our own monthly tracking of citywide collision reports1. Raw crash volume like that hasn't moved much in years. What has moved is who dies. The city just finished its safest year for traffic deaths since recordkeeping began in 1910, and early 2026 data says it's on pace to do it again2. Long Island, part of the same media market, is headed the opposite direction. That split, more than any single number, is what the crash data in this region looks like right now.
The citywide numbers keep falling
New York City recorded 205 traffic deaths in 2025, down 19 percent from 253 in 2024 and down 31 percent from the year before Vision Zero launched in 20142. The trend carried into 2026: the first quarter logged 42 fatalities, the third-lowest Q1 on record and down 7 percent from the same months in 2025, with pedestrian deaths falling 21 percent and motor vehicle occupant deaths down 20 percent3. Through the first half of 2026, pedestrian deaths fell to 46, down from 53 over the same stretch of 2025, the lowest first-half total on record outside the pandemic-emptied streets of 20203.
Transportation Alternatives' count of 2025 (206 deaths: 112 pedestrians, 73 motorists, 21 people on bikes) shows the gains landing unevenly by borough. The Bronx cut deaths 38 percent from 2024. Queens cut them 22 percent, 16 lives saved. Cyclist deaths in Brooklyn fell from an eight-a-year average to just one. Staten Island moved the other way, adding a single fatality4.
Two corridors carry a disproportionate share of what's left. Third Avenue in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, between 15th and 65th Streets, has logged 11 people killed or severely injured since a planned redesign stalled in 2024. Fordham Road in the Bronx has logged 35 killed or severely injured since its safety project was paused in September 20234. Both sit inside a citywide average that otherwise looks like real progress.
Congestion pricing changed the math south of 60th Street
Manhattan's congestion relief zone, in effect since January 5, 2025, cut vehicle entries below 60th Street by 27 million over its first year, an 11 percent drop in average daily traffic5. Crashes inside the zone fell 7 percent and injuries fell 8 percent over that same year. The effect shows up at specific crossings into the zone: morning travel through the Holland Tunnel got 51 percent faster, the Queensboro Bridge 29 percent faster, the Williamsburg Bridge 28 percent faster5. Fewer cars moving faster and fewer cars colliding turned out to go together here.
Long Island is the exception to the state trend
Statewide, fatalities fell from 766 (January through October 2024) to 681 over the same months in 2025, an 11 percent drop, according to the Governor's Traffic Safety Committee and the DMV6. Long Island didn't follow. Nassau and Suffolk combined went from 103 deaths to 110 over that period. Pedestrian deaths there rose from 32 to 35, and cyclist deaths more than doubled, from 3 to 76.
Enforcement looks like part of the reason. Suffolk County police wrote more than 76,000 tickets for dangerous driving in 2025, a 26 percent jump from 2024, alongside a 30 percent expansion of the highway patrol unit, and the county logged its lowest fatality count since 2020. Nassau County, over the same period, issued roughly half as many safety-related tickets as it did in 2019, even as serious injuries and deaths climbed, per reporting that draws on data from the University at Albany's Institute for Traffic Safety Management and Research7.
Sunrise Highway (NY-27), which runs through both counties, has its own documented gap. A Suffolk County stretch between Babylon and Center Moriches turned up 33 exits missing the state-mandated "Wrong Way" and "Do Not Enter" signage. The corridor has logged 21 wrong-way driving incidents since 2010, including two crashes in 2016 alone that killed three people. NYSDOT said it would move immediately to install the missing signs once the gap was reported8.
The region's worst traffic is a risk factor of its own
Congestion and crashes aren't the same problem, but they share the same roads. New York ranked as the second-most congested U.S. metro area in INRIX's 2025 Global Traffic Scorecard (fourth globally), with drivers losing about 102 hours a year to delay9. The Cross Bronx Expressway's southbound stretch, from the Bruckner Expressway toward Walter Gladwin Park, ranked eighth nationally, with drivers losing roughly 67 hours a year and afternoon slowdowns costing about 17 minutes at their worst9. Just across the market's edge in Fairfield County, Connecticut, I-95 southbound near Stamford was the single busiest corridor in the entire country in 2025, at 133 hours lost per driver9.
What changed the rules: Sammy's Law
Since May 2024, New York City has had authority it spent a decade asking Albany for. Governor Hochul's signature on Sammy's Law amended Vehicle and Traffic Law Section 1642 to let the city set speed limits as low as 20 mph citywide, and as low as 10 mph on streets with traffic-calming features, instead of the fixed 25 mph floor the state had required10. DOT used the new authority first on a 19-block stretch of Prospect Park West in Brooklyn and has been extending it block by block since.
What this means if you're in a crash here
None of this changes what to do right after a crash: call 911, get checked out even if you feel fine, and get the police report number before you leave. It does mean the data behind a case looks different depending on where the crash happened. A collision on Third Avenue in Sunset Park or Fordham Road sits inside a corridor DOT itself has already flagged as high-injury. A crash on Sunrise Highway or a Nassau County road may turn on questions about missing signage or reduced enforcement that wouldn't come up in Manhattan. An attorney who works this specific part of the region can pull the corridor-level and county-level numbers a generic case review would miss. You can find one through the legal directory.
This is general information, not legal advice.
Sources
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thatcarhitme.com, "New York Crash Report" for January 2026, February 2026, and April 2026: https://thatcarhitme.com/crash-data/new-york/new-york/january-2026-report , https://thatcarhitme.com/crash-data/new-york/new-york/february-2026-report , https://thatcarhitme.com/crash-data/new-york/new-york/april-2026-report
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NYC Department of Transportation, "Traffic Deaths Reach All-time Low: New York Ends Year With Fewest Fatalities Ever Recorded," https://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/pr2026/traffic-deaths-reach-all-time-low.shtml
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NYC Department of Transportation, "Traffic Deaths Are Near Lowest Levels in Recorded History After First Three Months of 2026" and "Pedestrian Deaths at Historic Low and First Half of 2026 Among Safest Years on Record," https://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/pr2026/traffic-deaths-are-near-lowest-levels.shtml , https://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/pr2026/vision-zero-pedestrian-deaths-at-historic-low.shtml
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Transportation Alternatives, "After 24/7 Speed Cameras, Safety Projects, and Over a Decade of Vision Zero, Historically Safe 2025 on New York City's Streets," https://transalt.org/press-releases/after-247-speed-cameras-safety-projects-and-over-a-decade-of-vision-zero-historically-safe-2025-on-new-york-citys-streets-demonstrates-the-need-to-double-down-on-what-works
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Office of Governor Kathy Hochul, "Less Traffic, Better Transit: Its First Anniversary, Governor Hochul Celebrates Transformational Congestion Pricing," https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/less-traffic-better-transit-its-first-anniversary-governor-hochul-celebrates-transformational
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New York State Department of Motor Vehicles, "New York State Sees Sharp Drop in Fatal Crashes," https://dmv.ny.gov/news/new-york-state-sees-sharp-drop-in-fatal-crashes
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710 WOR, "Data Released on Dangerous Drivers in Long Island," citing the University at Albany Institute for Traffic Safety Management and Research, https://710wor.iheart.com/content/2026-06-03-data-released-on-dangerous-drivers-in-long-island/
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NBC New York, "DOT Promises 'Immediate Action' on Sunrise Highway Signage After I-Team Report," https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Wrong-Way-Crash-Problem-Long-Island-Sunrise-Highway-Investigation-Police-New-York-415108383.html
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INRIX, "Congestion Up, Fatalities Down: What the 2025 INRIX Global Traffic Scorecard Reveals," https://inrix.com/blog/congestion-up-fatalities-down-what-the-2025-inrix-global-traffic-scorecard-reveals/
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Office of Governor Kathy Hochul, "Governor Hochul Joins New York City Officials and Activists to Celebrate the Signing of Sammy's Law," https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-hochul-joins-new-york-city-officials-and-activists-celebrate-signing-sammys-law