Albany Missed Its Budget Deadline. Here's What This Means For Sammy's Law.
Transportation Alternatives
Transportation Alternatives is your advocate for bicycling, walking and public transit in New York City.
Lower speed limits will make streets in New York City safer, and you can help us get this life-saving legislation — nearly 10 years in the making — into law. With the New York state budget deadline extended, there is still time to call your elected officials and demand that they include Sammy’s Law in this year’s budget.
WHAT IS SAMMY’S LAW?
Sammy’s Law, which would give New York City the ability to set its own speed limits, has support from both Governor Kathy Hochul and from the New York State Senate, but it needs the approval of the New York State Assembly to be included in this year’s budget.
The law is named for Sammy Cohen Eckstein, a 12-year-old boy who was hit and killed by a taxi driver while crossing the street in 2013. Following that crash, Families for Safe Streets was founded and began advocating for lower, safer speed limits across New York City.
In the years since, TA and FSS have successfully advocated for lowering NYC’s speed limit from 30 to 25 miles per hour — which led to a 25% decrease in pedestrian fatalities — and more recently, the implementation of 24/7 speed safety cameras, which has helped lower the rate of speeding violations by nearly 40% .
WHERE WE ARE NOW
The budget was due April 1. Lawmakers passed an extension to this deadline, giving them more time to negotiate. The budget could pass any day now, and we can’t let them negotiate out safer streets in New York City.
We’ve been meeting with lawmakers to tell them the facts: New York City faces a crisis of traffic violence, and we need solutions implemented now.
Last year, 16 children under age 18 were killed due to traffic violence , the most of any year of the Vision Zero program. Those individuals were part of the 257 people killed in crashes last year, which was the second-highest total across the five boroughs since 2018.
When a person walking or biking is hit by a car, the slower the car is traveling, the more likely the person is to survive.
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If a car is traveling 20 miles per hour, a person outside the car has a 90% chance of surviving the crash. For every 1 mile per hour increase in a vehicle’s speed, the mortality rate rises by 3%. Slower speeds lead to safer streets.
HOW YOU CAN HELP
There are two ways you can show your support for lower, safer speed limits!
If you have one minute, sign our petition in support of Sammy’s Law , which will send an email to your elected officials telling them you want safer streets.
Then, take five minutes to make calls to key members of the State Assembly and tell them we need Sammy’s Law to be included in this year’s budget:
We know lowering speed limits works, as we’ve seen in cities like London , Seattle , and Toronto — and already here in New York City! Every action you take gets us closer to a New York City with safer, more livable streets.
Thank you,
The TA team