Death by Auto
May 30th, 2007

Two postings on Streetsblog point out that cars can be deadly weapons. Examining a new health department study, the blog writes, “Motor vehicles are still the leading cause of accidental child deaths in New York City; 85 percent of motor-vehicle-related deaths involved children who were pedestrians.”

The rate was highest in Brooklyn, prompting officials to wonder whether a shortage of parks prompts kids to play in the street.

And in another posting, Charles Komanoff crunches homicide and traffic death statistics for New York City and Long Island and finds that violent deaths do not stop at the city line. “Per million people, Long Island had 51 fewer homicides …, but 50 more traffic fatalities … than New York City. In terms of total violent deaths, the difference between the Big Apple and Long Island - 105 deaths per million people in the City, 104 on the Island - is statistical noise,” he writes. (To see the numbers, click here.)