Most Drivers Speed Down This Long Island City Avenue: Report

LONG ISLAND CITY, QUEENS — Most New York City drivers were spotted speeding down a Long Island City avenue faster than the posted speed limit, according to data from a new report.

The report, authored by Transportation Alternatives, tracked the speed of 1,670 New York City drivers across the five boroughs, and found that 70 percent of drivers were speeding citywide.

In Queens, the percentage of speeding drivers was even higher. 73 percent of drivers were captured — by speed radar guns — speeding down the road at Skillman Avenue at 32nd Place, according to the report’s data.

The speed limit on Skillman Avenue is 25 MPH, but members of the Transportation Alternatives team, who spent a total of four hours tracking drivers’ speed at the intersection on two different days, observed drivers going nearly twice as fast — as much as 47 MHP.

Since 2018, four pedestrians have been injured at Skillman Avenue and 32nd Place, and over 50 others have been injured at the nearby Skillman Avenue and Queens Boulevard intersection — including one fatality, according to the city’s Vision Zero data.

Transportation Alternatives also found that in May of this year more people have been killed in traffic crashes in Queens as compared to any May since Vision Zero began in 2014.

One such fatality was an 82-year-old in Bayside, who was hit by a driver while crossing the street in a marked crosswalk.

But the “speeding epidemic,” according to Transportation Alternatives, extends well beyond Queens.

The group saw the most speeding in Staten Island, where 94 percent of drivers sped down Slosson Avenue at Martling Avenue, going as fast as 63 MPH in a 25 MPH zone.

In the Bronx more than half of drivers, 52 percent, were spotted speeding, whereas in Brooklyn and Manhattan the number of speeding drivers was less than half — 46 percent and 30 percent, respectively.

Transportation Alternatives hopes that this study will prompt lawmakers to pass a package of street-safety bills in Albany, before the legislative session ends next week.

The package, which has been dubbed the Crash Victims Rights & Safety Act, includes Sammy’s Law, a bill which would allow New York City to drop some roads’ speed limits to below 25 MPH, or 15 MPH in school zones, without approval from Albany.

“Believe it or not, but Albany has control over the speed limit on New York City streets,” said Marco Conner DiAquoi, deputy director of Transportation Alternatives, in a news statement.

“If state legislators do not pass Sammy’s Law this session, the number of New Yorkers killed and injured in preventable traffic crashes will sadly continue to rise,” he added, pointing to data that shows that lowering the speed limit is proven to decrease crashes and fatalities.

And, according to a study conducted by Emerson College on behalf of Transportation Alternatives, 72 percent of New York City voters agree that the city should set its own speed limits.

And, when the 525 people surveyed were asked if they would “personally like to see the speed limit reduced from 25 to 20 miles per hour on residential streets” in their neighborhoods, 68 percent said “probably” or “definitely.”

“Without Sammy’s Law, New York City lacks a critical tool to prevent speeding and save lives,” said Amy Cohen, who co-founded Families for Safe Streets after her son, Sammy Cohen Eckstein — who Sammy’s law is named after — was killed by a speeding driver in Brooklyn.

“We need state legislators to pass the Crash Victim Rights and Safety Act so no other New York families face the anguish of burying a child, spouse or parent due in a preventable act of traffic violence,” she said.